Gustav Adolph Michaelis

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Portrait of Michaelis' by Karl Christian Aubel 1821/22

Gustav Adolph Michaelis (born July 9, 1798 in Harburg ; † August 8, 1848 in Lehrte ) was a German doctor and obstetrician . He was the father of the archaeologist Adolf Michaelis (1835-1910).

Live and act

Michaelis came from a family of scholars and doctors. His grandfather, Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791), was a professor of theology and oriental studies at the University of Göttingen . The father, Gottfried Philipp Michaelis, was a general practitioner and obstetrician in Harburg and drew attention to himself in 1809 with the idea of ​​a prophylactic hysterectomy for caesarean sections , which was implemented in 1876 by Edouardo Porro (1842–1902) in Padua . His aunt Caroline Schelling (1763-1809) was a writer .

After the early death of his father in 1811, the 13-year-old Gustav Adolph was taken over by his aunt Luise, b. Michaelis, and her husband Christian Rudolf Wilhelm Wiedemann , the medical professor and first director of the Kiel Institute for Midwifery, took up residence in Kiel . He attended a high school in Kiel and began studying medicine in Göttingen in the spring of 1817 . The medical faculty there was under the influence of the surgeon Konrad JM Langenbeck . Obstetrics was taught by Friedrich Benjamin Osiander . Through Wiedemann Michaelis was already familiar with the thought processes of the Viennese School , which taught conservative obstetrics under Johann Lukas Boër . In contrast, Osiander represented an interventional obstetric medicine. In his department, 40% of the births were terminated with the forceps vaginally . Michaelis did not categorically commit himself to one of the schools, but learned from both. In addition to studying medicine, Michaelis dealt with literature, art, mathematics and natural sciences.

After receiving his doctorate , he returned to Kiel on July 25, 1820. In the summer of 1821 he traveled to Paris for a year with Justus Olshausen , Victor Aimé Huber and Heinrich Splitter to expand his medical knowledge . On the return trip, he became aware of Franz Karl Naegele's work on the female pelvis in obstetrics in Heidelberg . Michaelis intended to settle in Schleswig-Holstein , for which, as a "foreigner", he had to repeat his exams and doctoral exams. He went to the evaluation of its observation made in Paris on Zellgewebsverhärtung of newborns and could on 23 October 1823 the magazine De induratione telae cellulosce recens natorum habilitation . As a German, he was initially denied a professorship in Kiel, which was then Danish, despite his early habilitation .

In 1828 Michaelis married Julie Jahn, the sister of the archaeologist Otto Jahn . First Michaelis had to put the main emphasis of his medical work on the expansion of his own practice because the German law firm in Copenhagen was not ready to confirm him as Wiedemann's assistant. This confirmation came only in 1830, after he had already helped his uncle for several years. From 1836 he was largely in charge of the business of the midwifery school.

In 1836 he achieved the status of physicist for Kiel , Bordesholm and Kronshagen and finally advanced to extraordinary professor without salary. In 1838 he was accepted into the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina . With Wiedemann's death on December 21, 1840, he initially ran the institution on an interim basis. Only a petition from his students to the Danish king was able to enforce his appointment as head of the birthing center and senior teacher of the midwifery institution. The appointment took place on August 28, 1841, but the full professorship did not materialize.

After extensive studies on the shape of the female pelvis , he described the Michaelis diamond . His most prominent patient with a rachitically deformed pelvis was Mrs. Adametz from Wilster , in whom he performed the fourth caesarean section of a total of seven caesarean sections in 1836 . When thirteen women who had recently given birth died in less than six weeks from puerperal fever ( childbed fever ) in 1847 , he closed the institution in Kiel and decided to build a new one. Michaelis was one of the few obstetricians of his time who recognized the correctness of Semmelweis' findings , and thus also that he had contributed to the deaths of many women, including that of his cousins, by disregarding hygiene . He then plunged into a deep mental crisis and committed suicide on August 8, 1848 in Lehrte .

After his death, Carl Conrad Theodor Litzmann took over the management of the clinic.

family

Gustav Adolph Michaelis and his wife Julie born. Jahn (1806-1892) had four children:

Fonts (selection)

  • About the glow of the Baltic Sea, according to my own observations, along with some remarks about this phenomenon in other seas. Perthes and Besser, Hamburg 1830 Google Books
  • The narrow pelvis according to our own observations and studies. Wigand, Leipzig 1851
  • Over the retina, especially over the macula lutea and the central foramen. Nova acta, negotiations of the Imperial-Leopoldisch-Carolinische Akademie der Naturforscher , Vol. 19, 2nd Department. 1842
  • Caesarean section, unhappy for mother and child. Communications from the fields of medicine, surgery and pharmacy. Pfaff CH (Ed.) 2 (1833), 111-124
  • Treatises from the field of obstetrics. Kiel 1833
  • Strange case of a fourth caesarean section carried out on the same woman with great success. Communications from the fields of medicine, surgery and pharmacy. Pfaff CH (Ed.) 4 (1836), 60-61

Appreciation

The midwifery school in Kiel and a street that is now part of the clinic premises were named after Gustav Adolph Michaelis. The Michaelis diamond bears his name.

As can be seen from his diary entry of October 21, 1830, Goethe was influenced by Gustav Adolph Michaelis's explanation of the sea shine in 1830 in his work on the sea ​​gods scene in Faust.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Imperial Cut: The History of an Operation , page 181, Lehmann, V., Schattauer, 2006
  2. ↑ a b History of the Kiel University Women's Clinic  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.unifrauenklinik-kiel.de  
  3. ↑ Gerald Neitzke, St. Hoffmann: Gustav Adolph Michaelis - doctor, researcher, teacher. In: The gynecologist. Volume 32, 1998, pp. 660-664, doi : 10.1007 / PL00003279
  4. ↑ JDF Neigebaur : History of the Imperial Leopoldino-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1860, p. 267
  5. ↑ Member entry of Gustav Adolph Michaelis at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on November 27, 2015.
  6. ↑ Malte Herwig: Malte Herwig: Intertextuelle Irrlichter: The sea glow in the classic Walpurgis night , PDF file
personal data
SURNAME Michaelis, Gustav Adolph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor, professor and obstetrician
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Harburg
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1848
Place of death Taught