Heinrich Christian Dührssen

Heinrich Christian Dührssen (born June 19, 1799 in Eddelak , † October 4, 1838 in Meldorf ) was a German doctor.

Live and act

Heinrich Dührssen was a son of the parish bailiff Jakob Dührssen (1765-1814) and his wife and pastor's daughter Christina Amalia, née Wilckens. His brother Jakob (1796–1885) became a member of the Holstein Estates in 1852 . The brother Friedrich August (1802-1853) worked as a spa doctor on Helgoland and as a surgeon in Tellingstedt . This was the grandfather of the gynecologist Alfred Dührssen . His brother Nikolaus worked as a miller in Wesselburen . He also had three sisters.

Dührssen received home schooling from his father until he was 14 years old. Then he attended a school in Kiel for half a year. School ended due to the death of his father and the resulting lack of income for the family. Dührssen did a four-year apprenticeship with a pharmacist in Rendsburg and then attended the Meldorfer School of Academics . In 1819 he enrolled at the medical faculty of the University of Kiel . His teachers at the emerging institution included Christoph Heinrich Pfaff , Rudolf Wiedemann , Ferdinand Weber, Johann Erich von Berger and Reinhold. From 1821 to 1822 Dührssen studied at the University of Berlin . He heard pathology and therapy with Hecker and Ernst Horn , midwifery with Kluge, ophthalmology with Johann Christian Jüngken and attended lectures on chronic diseases with Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland . Then he went back to Kiel and finished his studies in 1823 with a doctorate.

After completing his studies, Dührssen practiced as a resident doctor in Meldorf, where, thanks to its popularity, he quickly had a large practice. He dealt with current medical issues, on which he wrote several articles. His subjects were scarlet fever , cholera or, in 1827, marsh fever .

In 1830 Dührssen married Anna Maria Beata Piel (1810–1868) from Brunsbüttel . The couple had a daughter and three sons, including Walther Eugenius Dührssen .

In addition to his work as a doctor, Dührssen was committed to a common constitution for the states of Schleswig and Holstein. In doing so, he followed the theses of Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann . Dührssen became infected while working as a doctor and died due to a disease that was described at the time as a "gastric-nervous fever", which was probably due to Weil's disease, which was discovered later .

Medical studies

In all publications, including the dissertation, Dührssen dealt with epidemics and infectious diseases. These were medical issues that were topical at the time, and only since the outbreak of cholera in Europe in 1823 and in Germany in 1831 were no longer just private, but systematic investigations.

Dührssen emphasized the connections between insufficient hygiene and the spread of epidemics, but also included the theory of miasms in his considerations. He was considered an excellent, progressive and objective scientist. Particular attention was paid to his "Contributions to the knowledge of the so-called Marsch or Dithmarsch disease morbus pseudosyphiliticus", which were published in 1832, in Schleswig-Holstein. The disease, which was an endemic form of syphilis, was considered one of the so-called "coastal epidemics", which was known as marsh fever at the beginning of the 19th century and occurred in European coastal regions. In the opinion of later researchers, however, it was the yaws in the northern German region, which is very similar to syphilis.

Dührssen knew how to make significantly more differentiated diagnoses than other doctors of his time. It should be particularly emphasized that the clinical picture of syphilis itself was not yet clearly defined and general practitioners usually had little experience with this disease and the treatment of patients. The doctor distinguished several combination forms of the diseases, including scurvy , rheumatism , scrofula and scabies from each other. He established the identity with syphilis and described several variations of the various possible combinations of the diseases.

literature

• Edith Feiner: Dührssen, Heinrich . in: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 1. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1970, pp. 131-134