Friedrich Wohlwill

Johann Friedrich Wohlwill (born August 20, 1881 in Hamburg , † July 15, 1958 in Brookline ) was a German neurologist , serologist and pathologist .

Live and act

Stumbling blocks in front of the entrance to the main building O 10 of the Hamburg University Hospital, including a stumbling block for Friedrich Wohlwill

Friedrich Wohlwill was a son of the chemist Emil Wohlwill . The painter Gretchen Wohlwill was one of his sisters . He himself passed his Abitur examination in 1900 and studied medicine at universities in Freiburg , Munich and Strasbourg . From 1906 he worked as an assistant for a long time in various places. This included the pathological institute of the Eppendorf General Hospital under Eugen Fraenkel and, from 1908, the neurology department at Max Nonne . After his internship at the neuro-psychiatric clinic in Halle, he opened a practice as a specialist in nervous diseases in Hamburg in 1912, which was located on Dammtorstrasse. In addition, he conducted research at the Pathological Institute of the General Hospital Eppendorf. From 1919 he also worked there as a secondary doctor and received his teaching qualification a year later. In 1924 he followed the hospital in St. George on Morris Simmonds as head of the Institute of Pathology. Until 1933 he gave lectures on pathological anatomy at the medical faculty of the University of Hamburg .

After the seizure of power , Wohlwill was considered a "non-Aryan" due to his Jewish descent. Based on the law to restore the civil service , he lost his teaching license and the post at the St. Georg Hospital. He continued his own practice and for a short time did a prosecution at the Israelite Hospital . In 1933 he left the German Reich and emigrated to Portugal . Max Nonne helped him get a position as a pathological anatomist at the Instituto Português de Oncologia at the Santa Marta University Hospital in Lisbon . As a prosector he founded a pathological research institute and established modern pathological-anatomical teaching in Portugal. He did not accept a chair from the University of Lisbon and emigrated to the United States a year later due to family circumstances , where three of his sons were staying.

In the USA Wohlwill worked for a short time as a pathologist in Cooperstown and from 1947 at Danvers State Hospital in Hawthorne . From 1952 he researched as Assistant Principal Investigator at the University of Boston on questions of atomic energy and taught pathology from 1953 until the end of his life as a consultant at the Institute of Neuropathology of the Warren Anatomical Museum of Harvard Medical School , for which he also carried out studies.

Board at house G of the Asklepios-Klinik St. Georg in Hamburg for Prof. Dr. med Friedrich Wohlwill

Wohlwill was a member of several international associations. These included the Academia das Ciências in Lisbon, the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists, and the New England Pathological Society . The German Society for Neurology accepted him as a corresponding member in 1952. After the end of the Second World War , Wohlwill submitted an application to Hamburg University for recognition of his academic achievements as a full professor. As part of the reparation proceedings, the Medical Faculty did not grant the application in 1957/58. In 1999 House G for hematology and oncology of the AK St. Georg was named "Friedrich-Wohlwill-House".

research

Wohlwill researched cancer and brain pathology. He wrote over 140 articles, including 50 publications in Portuguese between 1933 and 1946.

The synonym Wohlwill-Andrade syndrome for familial amyloid polyneuropathy type I is named after him.

literature

• Anna von Villiez: Wohlwill, Friedrich . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 6 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4 , p. 375-376 .
• Andreas Mettenleiter : Testimonials, memories, diaries and letters from German-speaking doctors. Supplements and supplements III (I – Z). In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 22, 2003, pp. 269-305, here: p. 302.
• Wohlwill, Friedrich , in: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945 . Munich: Saur, 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 390