Friedrich Voelcker

Friedrich Voelcker

Friedrich Voelcker (born June 22, 1872 in Speyer , † March 19, 1955 in Immenstadt ) was a German surgeon and urologist.

Life

Voelcker's parents were the gold and silversmith Friedrich-Jakob Voelcker and his wife Anna-Marie nee. Rehberger , who ran a small shop in Speyer.

Voelcker attended schools in Speyer and received musical training. He also learned his father's craft. After his military service as a one-year volunteer , he studied medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich , the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin and again in Munich. There he was promoted to Dr. med. PhD. In 1895/96 he went to the district hospital in Frankenthal (Palatinate) to acquire the skills needed to run a surgical doctor's practice .

In 1897 he entered the surgical clinic of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (1897–1906). In 1902 he completed his habilitation in surgery under Vinzenz Czerny . This was followed by a (urological) research stay in Paris . He also represented a surgeon in an Aachen hospital. In 1906 he was appointed senior physician and associate professor in Heidelberg . At the same time he set up a private clinic and in 1909 married Lili (* 1881), daughter of the agricultural scientist Adolf Stengel . Throughout the First World War he served as a medical officer in the Landwehr and in field hospitals of the Prussian Army . Voelcker was awarded the Iron Cross II. Class and the Baden War Merit Cross for his achievements .

When Victor Schmieden moved from Halle to Frankfurt in 1919 and a successor had to be found, August Bier wrote to the dean of Halle :

“There are two extraordinary cases that have been forgotten through no fault of their own or have not found the right assessment due to the guild clique, but which in my opinion surpass all of the above-mentioned ordinaries, Klapp in Berlin and Voelcker in Heidelberg. ... The scientifically best that Voelcker has to offer is the chromocystoscopy and the functional test of the kidneys, which he worked out in an excellent manner together with Joseph. ... He should be excellent as a surgeon and teacher. "

- August beer

Also Erwin Payr sat down for a Voelcker ( "an unusually likeable personality"). On October 1, 1919, the Prussian minister of education Konrad Haenisch Voelcker appointed full professor and director of the surgical clinic of the Friedrichs University in Halle . He was dean of the medical faculty and was elected rector of the Friedrichs University for the academic year 1928/29 . In his rectorate speech he dealt with physiological regeneration . In his time (1933) the university was renamed Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg . As director he headed the surgical university clinic until his retirement in 1937. In 1940 he moved to Berlin, later to Heidelberg and in 1944 to Bühl am Alpsee (Allgäu). He took on numerous vacation replacements in hospitals for his students.

Voelcker developed numerous new surgical methods for the body and the extremities (including "Völckersche spiral springs"). He is considered a founder of modern urology . Together with Eugen Joseph, he discovered indigo carmine in 1903 as a dye for the functional representation of the ureter and kidney. For several years (from 1921) he headed the German Urological Society and (from 1925) the German Society for Surgery. In Halle he developed extensive charitable activities. The university owed him the Hackfeld-Voelcker Foundation, which was richly endowed with money and real estate, and in the mid-1930s he donated 5,000 marks to a Jewish aid organization to enable the persecuted to emigrate. In 1933 Voelcker joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party with nationalistic exuberance . Completely disaffected, he left the party again in 1934, which got him into trouble at the university.

Voelcker died in Immenstadt and was buried in the Bergfriedhof (Heidelberg) not far from Gustav Simon .

Works

• Diagnosis of surgical kidney disease.
• Seminal vesicle surgery. Stuttgart 1912.
• with Eugen Joseph: Functional kidney diagnostics without ureteral catheter. In: Münchner medical Wochenschrift. Volume 50, 1903, pp. 2081-2080.
• with Eugen Joseph: Chromocystoscopy. In: German Medical Weekly . Volume 30, 1904, pp. 536-538.
• with Erich Robert Wossidlo: Urological Operations. Leipzig 1924.

editor

• Journal of Urological Surgery.

Honors

• Corresponding member of the Italian Society of Urology
• Corresponding member of the Argentine Urological Society
• Honorary member of the Hungarian Urological Society
• Honorary member of the Spanish Society of Urology
• Honorary member of the Vienna Society for Urology
• President (1921) and honorary member of the German Society for Urology
• President (1932) and honorary member (1943) of the German Society for Surgery
• Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (1924)
• Honorary Citizen of Speyer (1947)
• Friedrich-Voelcker-Strasse in Speyer

literature

• Hildegard Kühn: Friedrich Voelcker - his life and work. Diss. Univ. Heidelberg 1969.
• Wolfram Kaiser, Martin Stolze: Pro Memoria Friedrich Voelcker (1872–1955), Director of the Surgical University Clinic in Halle from 1919–1937. Hall 1972.
• Henrik Eberle: The Martin Luther University in the time of National Socialism. Hall 2002.
• Klaus-Peter Wenzel : 200 years of university surgery in Halle an der Saale (1811–2011). Projects Verlag Cornelius, Halle 2011, ISBN 978-3-86237-278-2 .

Web links

• Obituary (Karger)
• Short biography (Speyer) ( Memento from January 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dissertation: A Case of Burning Pneumonia .
2. ↑ Habilitation thesis: The caput obstipum - an intrauterine stress deformity
3. ↑ Rector's speeches (HKM)
4. ^ Horst Kremling : Würzburger Contributions to Gynecological Urology. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 5, 1987, pp. 5-11, here: pp. 6 f.