Heinrich Lamm

Heinrich Lamm (born January 19, 1908 in Munich , † July 12, 1974 in Harlingen , Texas) was a German-American doctor. During his studies, he constructed the world's first attempt at an endoscope based on glass fibers.

Life

Heinrich Lamm was born in Munich in 1908 as the first of two sons of the blacksmith Ignaz Lamm and his wife Martha, née. Pinczower born. His brother was the journalist and association official Hans Lamm .

Heinrich Lamm studied medicine in Breslau and Munich. Because of his Jewish origins, the Nazis' seizure of power in Germany dashed his hopes for an academic career there. He managed to travel to the USA with his family, his brother and his father. There he worked from 1937 in Kansas City (Missouri) and from 1939 in La Feria (Texas) as a practicing doctor.

Lamm was married and had two children.

Act

As a medical student in the 1930s, he started attempts to transmit images by bundling optical fibers. Lamm first invented sufficiently flexible fiber optic cables as the basis for his remarkable goal: the transmission of optical images on non-straight - curvy stretches. To do this, he combined 400 individual fibers and a coherent bundling, which was the basis for fiber optic endoscopes. Its actual intention was to make parts of the human body that were inaccessible from the outside optically accessible. However, the quality of the images was not satisfactory. Lamm's efforts to obtain a patent failed because Clarence Hansell had already been granted a British patent for a similar project.

literature

Harro Jenss: Heinrich Lamm and fiber optic endoscopy. In: Journal of Gastroenterology. Vol. 54 (2016), No. 11, pp. 1204 f., DOI: 10.1055 / s-0042-117351 .

Individual evidence

↑ Flexible endoscopes. (PDF) Deutsches Museum , accessed December 7, 2014 .
↑ ^a ^b Family Sheet Max Lamm of Wittelshofen + Buttenwiesen. (PDF) Alemannia Judaica , accessed on December 7, 2014 (English).
↑ Jeff Hecht: A Fiber-Optic Chronology. Retrieved December 8, 2014 . Contains excerpts from Jeff Hecht: City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics . 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Oxford University Press , 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-516255-4 .

personal data
SURNAME	Lamm, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German physician and pioneer of image transmission via optical fiber
DATE OF BIRTH	January 19, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH	Munich
DATE OF DEATH	July 12, 1974
Place of death	Harlingen, Texas

[dtmuseum-1] Flexible endoscopes. (PDF) Deutsches Museum , accessed December 7, 2014 .

[alemanniajudaica-2] Family Sheet Max Lamm of Wittelshofen + Buttenwiesen. (PDF) Alemannia Judaica , accessed on December 7, 2014 (English).

[jeffhecht-3] Jeff Hecht: A Fiber-Optic Chronology. Retrieved December 8, 2014 . Contains excerpts from Jeff Hecht: City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics . 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Oxford University Press , 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-516255-4 .