Friedrich Pauwels

Friedrich Franz Karl Maria Pauwels (born May 23, 1885 in Aachen ; † January 19, 1980 there ) was a German doctor , orthopedist and biomechanic .

Life

Friedrich Pauwels was the son of the machine manufacturer Charles Pauwels (1837-1922) and Maria Packenius (1846-1917) and the grandson of the Brussels coach manufacturer Peter (Pierre) Josef Pauwels, the co-founder of the Talbot wagon factory in Aachen. After graduating from the Kaiser-Karls-Gymnasium , Friedrich Pauwels studied natural sciences in Lausanne from 1906 to 1907 and then medicine in Freiburg im Breisgau. After Pauwels had passed the state examination in 1911 and received his doctorate in the same year, he initially worked in Dresden, Berlin and Vienna. In 1913 he took over the management of the medico-mechanical zander institute in Aachen, founded by his brother-in-law August Sträter . From 1924 to 1934, Pauwels then headed the newly established orthopedic department in the Luisenhospital Aachen as chief physician . After the premises there became too cramped for him and he had also messed with the head of surgery, Eduard Borcher , he moved to the municipal hospitals in 1934 on the mediation of the district judge Hugo Cadenbach , which later became the Aachen University Hospital , where he was founding director of the orthopedic clinic until 1960 was on duty, followed by Anton Hopf .

During the National Socialist era , Pauwels was able to carry out his service relatively undisturbed , even without becoming a member of the NSDAP . Nevertheless, in 1934 he joined the Reichslehrerbund and the National Socialist People's Welfare . His admission to the Sturmabteilung (SA) in the same year was due to the forced unification of SA and Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten . In 1942 Pauwels was also confirmed as a candidate for membership in the National Socialist German Medical Association .

On September 12, 1944, almost all the patients in the city hospitals and most of their senior doctors, as well as the civilian population and the authorities, were evacuated by forced evacuation order. Only Pauwels stayed in Aachen, as did the radiologist Theodor Möhlmann and the internist Ludwig Beltz , because he either refused to be evacuated - which according to the law at the time could have resulted in the death penalty - or according to the order of the Gauleitung that “ in the event of the evacuation of Aachen, appropriate Personalities who should be responsible for looking after the population after the occupation ”and“ who are not particularly prominent politically, but who have the confidence in the population necessary to carry out their office. "

Pauwels had been a member of Club Aachener Casino since 1927 . His first marriage was to the Swiss Eugène Pidoux (1889–1960) and the second to Sibylle Königs from Hilfarth (* 1909).

Services

As part of his orthopedic work, Pauwels always dealt with the biomechanical basics of the skeletal system and the biomechanics of bone healing. He checked the biomechanical considerations already published by Wilhelm Roux and Julius Wolff and developed functional orthopedics significantly. He defined the ability of the bone and its mesenchymal cells to react to different types of acting forces (tension, pressure, shear) through different differentiation in tissue types and therefore with functional adaptation. In 1927 he succeeded for the first time in the surgical healing of a femoral neck pseudarthrosis based on biomechanical planning . Pauwels was particularly interested in three diseases of the hip joint: femoral neck pseudarthrosis, coxa vara infantum and coxarthrosis . In 1958, he introduced the principle of tension belts from reinforced concrete construction in the treatment of fractures of the kneecap and the elbow hook , whereby tensile structures on the fragments (wire loops) could trigger a pressure effect on the fracture gap under load. The tension belt with a wire loop is one of the oldest and most cost-effective surgical methods for treating fractures (in addition to the Kirschner wire spike), which is still used successfully today as standard. In 1973 Pauwels published an atlas on the biomechanics of healthy and diseased hips , in which he also established the Pauwels classification for the classification of femoral neck fractures .

Honors

• 1938: Principe Umberto Prize from the University of Bologna
• 1953: Dr. Honorary engineer from RWTH Aachen University
• 1957: Dr. med. honorary from the University of Freiburg
• 1960: Member of the Leopoldina
• 1962: Large Federal Cross of Merit
• 1966: Paracelsus Medal
• 1972: Honorary professor at Aachen University Hospital
• 1976: Street name in Aachen in the area of ​​the New Clinic

Publications (selection)

• The femoral neck fracture is a mechanical problem. Stuttgart, Enke, 1935.
• A new theory about the influence of mechanical stimuli on the differentiation of the supporting tissues. 10. Contribution z. functional anatomy and causal morphogenesis of the supporting apparatus. In: Journal of Anatomy and History of Development . 121, 1960, p. 478.
• Collected treatises on the functional anatomy of the musculoskeletal system. Berlin, Springer, 1965.
• Results of anatomy and history of development . / Vol. 44 / H. 3. Mechanical stress, functional adaptation and the variation structure of the human femur diaphysis. 1971.
• Atlas of the biomechanics of the healthy and diseased hip . Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York 1973, ISBN 3-540-06048-0 .
• Biomechanics of the locomotor apparatus . Completely revised and enlarged, including seven new chapters. Springer, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-540-09131-9 .

literature

• Peter Voswinkel:  Pauwels, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 141 ( digitized version ).
• Ingo Klute, Norbert M. Meenen: The fracture of the kneecap . Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 1998, ISBN 3-540-63590-4 .
• Regina-Maria Weigmann: Friedrich Pauwels, life and work. Dissertation at the Medical Faculty of RWTH Aachen University in 1989.
• Eduard Arens, Wilhelm Leopold Janssen : Club Aachener Casino. Druck Metz, Aachen 1964, p. 247.
• Richard Kühl: Leading Aachen clinic doctors and their role in the Third Reich (= studies of the Aachen Competence Center for the History of Science , Vol. 11). Kassel university press, 2010, pp. 41–43. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Pauwels in the catalog of the German National Library