Gustav Adolf Neuber

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Gustav Adolf Neuber

Gustav Adolf Neuber (born June 24, 1850 in Tondern , Duchy of Schleswig , † April 13, 1932 in Kiel ) was a German surgeon and university professor. He was the first in Germany to practice asepsis in the operating room.

Life

Neuber's parents were the pharmacist of the same name from Meldorf and Fanny born in Kiel . Sulfur . The Schweffel family was a prominent family in Kiel. Neuber's grandfather, Senator Johann Schweffel , together with August Howaldt owned the mechanical engineering company and iron foundry Schweffel & Howaldt , which later became the Howaldtswerft . Neuber was the third child of his parents, who only stayed in Tondern until 1853 and moved from there to Uetersen . Gustav Adolf Neuber spent his school days in Meldorf and Altona , where he passed the Abitur at the Christianeum . He then took part in the Franco-German War (1870–1871) as a one-year volunteer . Here he served in the 2nd Westphalian Hussar Regiment No. 11 . After the war he studied medicine at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen and the University of Leipzig . He became active in the Corps Franconia Tübingen and the Corps Saxonia Leipzig . When he was inactive , he moved to the Friedrichs University in Halle , the University of Vienna and the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel . On March 8, 1875, he received his doctorate in Giessen . At the end of 1875 he passed the medical state examination in Kiel.

After an interlude as senior staff doctor in the Serbian Army in the Serbian-Ottoman War in 1876, he returned to Kiel. He became the first assistant to Friedrich Esmarch at the Surgical University Clinic .

In 1878 Neuber married the German-Australian Anna Koch, daughter of a shipyard owner from Sandhurst. With her he had four children: Fritz (born 1879), Carl-Ernst (1883–1946), Anna Maria (born 1886) and Otto (1888–1916). In the last years of his life, Neuber suffered from increasing dementia. He died of pneumonia at the age of 82 and was buried in the Südfriedhof (Kiel) .

Act

Neuber submitted his habilitation in 1878 under Esmarch's direction. The subject of his post-doctoral thesis concerned operations under artificial hemorrhage on the forearm. After granting the venia legendi , he regularly represented Esmarch in absentia. This not only meant substituting for holidays, but also for occasions such as lectures abroad, visits to congresses or Esmarch's frequent stays in spas, as can be seen in the faculty books of that time.

At first, Neber's thirst for research went in many directions. A publication on the permanent aseptic dressing (1881), for which he was known in the contemporary professional world, took a prominent position . In 1884 he propagated for the first time in a publication the use of separate operating rooms for septic and non-septic operations and suggested that this principle be taken into account when setting up new hospitals. A blueprint for such a model hospital, which had been designed by the master builder von Müller under Neber's guidance, was shown at the hygiene exhibition in Berlin in 1884.

Operating under Lister's carbolic spray, which was supposed to kill the germs in the operating area and thus prevent wound infections, was the standard method at the time when Neuber was Esmarch's first assistant. However, the disadvantages of the carbol spray also turned out to be. Neuber then made experiments with alternative solutions without carbole , first with boron salicylic solution, and finally switched to using only 0.6% saline solution (1884).

Inspired by the famous work studies on the Äthologie of wound infections by Robert Koch in 1878, Neuber was convinced that these findings should be utilized for the treatment of infected wounds and the elimination of infection during surgery. He attached great importance to the meticulous cleanliness of the instruments, the inventory and the clothes of the surgeons. He also developed a new construction for surgical instruments that could now be sterilized by boiling them. He also ensured that the bandages had to be sterilized before use.

Bust of Gustav Adolf Neuber in front of the Sankt Elisabeth Hospital in Kiel

His suggestions for the construction of new operating rooms in the surgical university clinic were partially followed during the renovation, but the separation between septic and aseptic operations, which he called for, was not. His regulations for the OR staff to wash before work were also repeatedly circumvented. Eventually, differences of opinion with von Esmarch and misunderstandings led to Neuber giving up his position in Esmarch's clinic in 1883/84. As a private lecturer, however, he held lectures at the university until 1891.

After the first successes of his ideas in a newly built hospital in Gaarden in 1884 , Neuber opened his own (with his wife's money) newly built private clinic at Königsweg No. 8 in Kiel in 1886. He himself lived with his family at Königsweg 4 and had also accommodated first-class patients in his house.

This step ushered in a new era in surgery and the hospital system. Because the clinic had special ventilation systems as well as special heating and drainage systems. Five operating theaters were available, with surfaces that were as smooth as possible, glass cabinets built into the walls, washable tiled walls, washrooms for the operating staff and strict separation between septic and aseptic departments.

With these measures he was the first to realize today's principles of asepsis and they set the trend for hospitals and their institutions in the medical world. In 1919, Neuber handed over the clinic on Königsweg to the Anschar Hospital in Kiel, which is now called Sankt Elisabeth Hospital after renovations . At the entrance a plaque commemorates Gustav Adolf Neuber, which was installed in 1950 on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Since 2011, a bust in front of the entrance to the hospital has been a reminder of Neuber's achievements. Neuber remained loyal to the Gaarden hospital. Third-class patients were operated on and cared for here. Neuber took the ferry across the Hörn every day to make visits there and operate several days a week. The compulsory health insurance, which had existed since 1883, also guaranteed adequate fees.

Honors

Neuber also took an active part in the community life of the city of Kiel and was a city councilor from 1889 to 1900. During this time, he mainly devoted himself to development plans and the establishment of allotment gardens. In 1895 he was given the title of Privy Medical Councilor, and in 1901 he became General Doctor of the Imperial Navy. In 1911 Neuber was appointed to the Prussian manor house . At the instigation of Esmarch's successor Wilhelm Anschütz , he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Kiel on his 70th birthday. The German Society for Surgery made Neuber an honorary member in 1923. The Association of Northwest German Surgeons also made him an honorary member.

Memberships

In 1843 Neuber was introduced by Félix Édouard Guérin-Méneville as member number 287 of the Société cuvierienne .

literature

  • Karin Plagemann: On the 150th birthday of Gustav Adolf Neuber (1850–1932). Schleswig-Holsteinisches Ärzteblatt 12/2000, pp. 16-20.
  • Pagel: Biographical lexicon of outstanding doctors of the nineteenth century . Berlin, Vienna 1901, Col. 1200-1201. ( Permalink )
  • Société cuvierienne: Nouveaux membres admis dans la Société curvienne . In: Revue Zoologique par La Société Cuvierienne . tape 6 , 1843, pp. 376 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).
  • Georg Ernst Konjetzny / Edward Heits: Gustav Adolf Neuber and the asepsis. A historical study on the occasion of GA Neuber's 100th birthday on June 24, 1950 , Enke, Stuttgart 1950.
  • Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Neuber, Gustav Adolf. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1031.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gustav Adolf Neuber: Aseptic wound treatment in my private surgical hospitals. Kiel 1886.
  2. ^ Information on Neubers' grave of honor
  3. ^ List of honorary members of the German Society for Surgery
  4. ↑ On the history of the Association of Northwest German Surgeons , 125th conference, 12. – 14. June 1980, p. 24.
  5. ^ Société cuviérienne, p. 376.
personal data
SURNAME Neuber, Gustav Adolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German medic and surgeon
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Tondern
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1932
Place of death Kiel