Heinrich Carl Welsch
(family grave in the chapel cemetery , Bad Kissingen)
Heinrich Carl Welsch (born July 21, 1808 in Odernheim am Glan ; † August 22, 1882 in Bad Kissingen , Lower Franconia ) was a royal Bavarian spa doctor in Bad Kissingen.
Life
Heinrich Carl Welsch came from a respected family, originally from Wales (Welsh), later as Protestants ( Huguenots ) for reasons of faith from Valenciennes ( France ) to Baumholder in the Prussian Rhine Province and was the son of the church council and dean Heinrich Jakob Welsch , knight of the Bavarian Grand Ducal Hessian Order of Ludwig , formerly sub-rector of the Latin School in Bergzabern , and the pastor's daughter Elisabeth Neßel (Nössel).
According to his own statement, Welsch is said to have been a weak child with light blonde hair. Nevertheless, he completed his schooling first in Kreuznach and from the age of 13 in Zweibrücken without difficulty and passed the Abitur with the grade 1. He then studied medicine first at the University of Erlangen , where he joined the Erlangen fraternity in the winter semester 1826/27 . joined, after a year moved to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich , after another year to the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg . There he received his doctorate at the age of 20. He then visited the spa town of Kissingen for the first time, but then went to Paris to treat the wounded from the July Revolution of 1830 in the hospitals there. After only a short stay in Paris, he went as an assistant to the “General Hospital for Rhine Bavaria ” in Frankenthal (Palatinate) in 1831 , where he wanted to do a two-year internship. But in 1832 he was back in Würzburg and then took his practical exam at the Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg .
His Bamberg professor, whom he visited because of his own health problems, thought he was a hypochondriac , but sent him to Kissingen for a cure. There Welsch went to see the spa doctor Johann Adam Maas (1784-1852), from 1814 royal Bavarian district physician ( medical officer ) and district court doctor in Kissingen, well and saltworks doctor and spa doctor in Bocklet and later (1834) - alongside Bavaria's King Ludwig I and his Wife Therese - co-founder of the Kissinger Theresienpital for needy employees. Maas laughed at Welsch because of his imaginary illnesses, but invited him into his house, where Welsch met his 14-year-old daughter Eva Amalie Therese (born March 27, 1818 in Bad Kissingen; † January 21, 1894 ibid). Welsch made a few sick visits with Maas in the country, but then returned to Würzburg. However, he soon opened a rapidly flourishing medical practice in Speyer . His reputation was so good that Welsch was accepted as a member of the district medical committee in Speyer at the age of 24.
In 1836 Welsch returned to Kissingen and asked Maas for his daughter's hand. However, he did not want her to marry before she was 24, as his own wife Eva Catharina had died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 in 1819 and two of his daughters had died in childhood. Welsch insisted on his marriage proposal and complied with his father-in-law's demands to move his practice to Kissingen and - although he was a staunch Protestant himself - to have his children baptized Catholics. Finally, the following year, on October 9, 1837, the wedding with the now 19-year-old Eva Amalie Maas took place. From this marriage come the four sons, the landowner Oskar Welsch (1839–1913), the Bad Kissingen spa doctor Hermann Welsch (1842–1892), Albert Welsch (1847– ??) and who also practiced in Bad Kissingen and in winter in Odernheim royal Bavarian medical councilor and councilor Heinrich Welsch (1855–1931).
His new practice in Kissingen must also have gone well, because just three years later (1840) Welsch was able to have a house (today Bismarckstraße 26 ) built by the then famous architect Johann Gottfried Gutensohn , for which he and its furnishings were in the new building area west of the Franconian Saale Paid 30,000 guilders . He was one of the first privately established well doctors in the spa town and was therefore dependent on the wealthy spa guests to finance his large household with servants, carriages and horses. This actually succeeded and, thanks to his famous patients from European rulers and high nobility, he soon had a very good reputation in Berlin, Saint Petersburg , Paris and London . His most famous patient was the Austrian Empress Elisabeth (Sisi), whom he was able to cure of her illness in 1863 and to whom he was invited to dinner three times in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph and Bavaria's King Maximilian II . Other well-known patients were Sisi's father, Duke Max in Bavaria , the Dukes Joseph and Georg von Sachsen-Altenburg with their family, Prince Wasa, the later King of Sweden, Oskar I , Archduke Georg von Mecklenburg-Strelitz and others. Since he also spoke English, he was very good at treating foreign patients.
Because of his services, he was given a number of awards and titles, as was customary at the time. He was also an honorary member of various scientific and medical associations and societies at home and abroad ( Athens , Paris, London).
Welsch built up substantial financial reserves. He bought bonds , invested 20,000 guilders with his brother in New York City and bought the "Altenfelder Hof" near Görlitz for his son Albert .
From 1878 Welsch was ailing and with him died in 1882 “the last of the older generation of local doctors” . He was buried in the family crypt in the chapel cemetery in Bad Kissingen.
Orders and awards (selection)
- 1841: Cross of Merit of the Duke of Saxony-Ernestine House Order
- 1853: Grand Ducal Councilor of Mecklenburg
- Grand Ducal Hessian Order of Louis 4th class
- 1862: Knight's Cross of the Ernestine House Order of Saxony
- 1863: Knight's Cross of the Austrian Franz Joseph Order
- 1870: Saxon-Altenburg secret medical councilor
- 1870: Royal Prussian Crown Order 3rd class
Publications
- Kissingen with its medicinal springs in several relationships , Würzburg 1839
- Latest reports on the health resort Kissingen and its mineral water , Frankfurt am Main 1842
literature
- Gerhard Wulz: The chapel cemetery in Bad Kissingen. A guide with short biographies. Bad Kissingen 2001, ISBN 3-934912-04-4 .
- Gerhard Wulz: A life in Kissingen - because of love…. From the life of the well doctor Heinrich Carl Welsch. In: Saale-Zeitung from May 18, 2010
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ernst Höhne: The Bubenreuther. History of a German fraternity. II., Erlangen 1936, p. 113.
- ^ Obituary in the Saale-Zeitung from 24./25. August 1882
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Welsch, Heinrich Carl |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Bavarian bath doctor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 21, 1808 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Odernheim am Glan , Département du Mont-Tonnerre , France |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 22, 1882 |
| Place of death | Bad Kissingen |