Friedrich Karl Wilhelm Doenitz

Friedrich Karl Wilhelm Dönitz (born June 27, 1838 in Berlin ; † March 12, 1912 there) was a German physician , zoologist and entomologist who also made a significant contribution to the modernization of medicine in Japan.

Studies and early career

Friedrich Karl Wilhelm Dönitz was born in Berlin as the son of a clothes maker. In 1859 he began studying medicine at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität , which he completed on January 15, 1864 with a dissertation "De tunicae intestinorum villosae epithelio". He then became an assistant to Karl Bogislaus Reichert (1811-1883) in the anatomical institute. At the same time he carried out research under the guidance of the clinician Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs (1819–1885). During these years he already dealt with zoology and parasitology. In 1873 he was awarded the title of professor.

Stay in Japan

Spiders from the collection of Wilhelm Dönitz ( Treatises of the Senckenberg Natural Research Society , Vol. 30)

After the collapse of the Tokugawa dynasty, the young Meiji government decided in 1870 to introduce Western medicine on the basis of German medicine. As a result, German doctors were invited to Japan, including Dönitz. On July 10, 1873, he left for Tokyo . The first Japanese student abroad, Hagihara Sankei (1840–1894), who studied medicine in Berlin and, like Dönitz, had received an appointment, returned with him. Dönitz taught anatomy at the Tōkyō Medical Academy ( Dai ichi daigaku igakkō , today Faculty of Medicine at the Tōkyō University ). At that time, the students' knowledge of German had advanced to such an extent that classes were held without an interpreter. Sections have hardly been carried out to date, which is why Dönitz introduced regular instructions in anatomy and pathological anatomy. Dönitzen's instructions were included in the nationally used anatomy book Kaibō-ranyō , which one of his students, Taguchi Kazuyoshi, published in 1877.

At the same time, Dönitz set up the police medicine school in Tokyo and was the only forensic doctor there - initially part-time, later full-time. In 1875 he met the Scottish doctor Henry Faulds (1844-1930) who tried to introduce fingerprints to identify offenders in forensics. Dönitz adopted this procedure in the Japanese forensic medicine he had built up. Japanese newspapers of those years mention his excellent section technique at mortuary examinations.

In 1876 negotiations about a contract extension collapsed due to differences in pay. Dönitz then went to the medical school in Nagasaki . In 1879, after a home leave, he took a job at the Saga Medical School . Here he devoted himself particularly to hygienic tasks and also performed operations.

During the years in Japan Dönitz dealt intensively with millipedes ( Myriapoda ), spiders ( Arachnida ) and mussels ( Bivalvia ) and put on an extensive collection that later became the property of the Senckenberg Natural Research Society .

In 1886 he finally returned to Germany.

Further career in Germany

After his return he worked for seven years in Berlin at the Hygiene Institute of Robert Koch (1843–1910), which was renamed the Institute for Infectious Diseases in 1891. Dönitz helped develop the tuberculins . In 1893 he was appointed head of the bacteriological laboratory for cholera studies in Bonn . He stayed there until 1896. Three years followed in the Royal Prussian Institute for Serum Research and Serum Therapy in Steglitz near Berlin , headed by Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915) . When this was converted into an institute for experimental therapy and moved to Frankfurt a. M. was relocated, he moved to Frankfurt, but returned to Berlin in December 1899 because of his appointment as medical councilor and head of the sick department of the Institute for Infectious Diseases. Later he was appointed director of the scientific department of this institute, which was headed by Koch and, after 1904, by his student Georg Gaffky (1850–1918). Dönitz held this position until his death. He died of purulent peritonitis after an operation for a malignant tumor.

Well over 50 works including his dissertation are known from Dönitz. The publications on cholera and leprosy, on ticks, the anopheles mosquito and oxodides are considered important. As a gifted draftsman, he usually illustrated his studies himself.

With regard to Japan, Dönitz has made a name for himself with the general introduction of the section into medical training, with the establishment of forensic medicine and his contributions to improving hygienic conditions. A number of spiders bear his name: Plexippoides doenitzi (Karsch, 1879), Araneus doenitzella (Strand, 1906), Lycosa doenitzi (Bösenberg & Strand, 1906), Erigone doenitzi (Strand, 1918), Doenitzius peniculus (Oi, 1960), Doenitzius pruvus (Oi, 1960).

Works (selection)

• Fridericus Carolus Guilelmus Doenitz: De tunicae intestinorum villosae epithelio: dissertatio inauguralis microscopico-anatomica. Berolini: Lange, 1864.
• Comments on Aino's. In: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens , Volume I (1873–1876), Issue 6, pp. 61–67.
• About a sound of a butterfly. Ditto, pp. 68-69.
• About a peculiar deformity in a cat. Ditto, pp. 69-70.
• About the ancestry of the Japanese. In: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens , Volume I (1873–1876), Issue 8, pp. 39–41.
• About cremation in Japan. In: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens , Volume I (1873–1876), Issue 10, pp. 28–29.
• Table of the measures of seven female Japanese basins. In: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens , Volume II (1876–1880), Issue 11, p. 32.
• About three different types among Japanese skulls. In: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens , Volume II (1876–1880), Issue 12, pp. 69–70.
• About bird trapping in Japan. Ditto, issue 12, pp. 71-72.
• About the antitoxin of tetanus. In: Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift , No. 23, (1897), pp. 428-430.
• Report on the activity of the Kgl. Institute for Serum Research and Serum Testing in Steglitz. In: Clinical Yearbook 1899 .
• About the way of life of two tarantulas from Japan. In: Meeting reports of the Society of Friends of Nature Research in Berlin , 1887, pp. 49–51.
• Contributions to the knowledge of Anopheles. In: Journal for Hygiene and Infectious Diseases , No. 41, (1902), pp. 15-88.
• Contribution to the knowledge of Anopheles, II. Communication. In: Journal for Hygiene and Infectious Diseases , No. 43, (1903), pp. 215-238.
• The economically important ticks with a special focus on Africa. Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1907.

literature

• Wilhelm Bösenberg and Embrik Strand: Japanese spiders. In: Abhandlungen der Senckenbergische Naturforschenden Gesellschaft , Vol. 30 (1909), Issue 1/2, pp. 93-422.
• Hermann Heinrich Vianden: The introduction of German medicine in Japan during the Meiji period . Triltsch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1985.
• H. Stüler: W. Dönitz †. In: Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift , Vol. 57 (1912), Supplement: Berliner Entomologische Zeitschrift, pp. 107-109.
• GHF Nuttall: In memoriam. Wilhelm Doenitz. In: Parasitology Vol. 5 (Cambridge University Press, 1913), No. 4, pp. 253-261.
• Julius Leopold Pagel: Biographical lexicon of outstanding doctors of the nineteenth century . Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin / Vienna 1901, Sp. 402–403.

Remarks

1. ↑ De tunicae intestinorum villosae epithelio: dissertatio inauguralis microscopico-anatomica / publice defendet auctor Frider. Car. Guilelmus Doenitz. Berolini: Lange, 1864.
2. ↑ Vianden, pp. 152-54, Pagel, col. 402-403.
3. ↑ Tomimura Tarō: Hagihara Sankei no ryūgaku. Gōgakusha, 1981 ( 富 村 太郎 『萩 原 三 圭 の 留学』 ).
4. ↑ Taguchi Kazuyoshi: Kaibō-ranyō , 田 口 和美 『解剖 攬 要』 ( digitized in the National Diet Library Tokyo ). Taguchi (1839–1904) is considered the father of modern Japanese anatomy.
5. ↑ Vianden, pp. 152-54, Pagel, col. 402-403.
6. ↑ See H. Stüle; W. Bösenberg
7. ↑ Vianden, pp. 153-54
8. ↑ H. Stüler