Hermann Hilber

Hermann Hilber (born May 30, 1910 in Munich ; † January 24, 1979 ibid) was a German doctor and medical professor. He held the chair for paediatrics at the Medical Faculty of the Technical University of Munich and was chief physician at the children's hospital in Munich-Schwabing for many years .

Life

Hermann Hilber was born in Munich in 1910 as the son of the architect Hermann Hilber and his wife Katharina, b. Zapf was born, graduated from high school there in 1929. He passed the preliminary medical examination in 1931 and his state examination in 1934 at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and then obtained his doctorate. His doctoral thesis “The formative influence of breathing on the lungs” , which was suggested by Harry Marcus and which he had written before the Physikum , laid important prerequisites for making lung operations possible . The work received exceptional attention and marked a brilliant start to his scientific work. In December 1934 he married Agathe Freiin von Schnurbein (1911-2004), the couple had ten children, nine of whom reached adulthood.

In Heidelberg he began his pediatric training under Ernst Moro , who must have had a lasting influence on Hilber. It is thanks to Moro that Hilber ultimately turned from anatomy to paediatrics. Back in Munich he worked for two years at the anatomical institute of the university on problems of lung development, but switched to the university children's clinic under Privy Councilor Meinhard von , despite the attempts to keep him there Pfaundler . In 1943, after four years of military service, including landing on Crete, Hilber completed his habilitation under Alfred Wiskott after he was seriously ill with amoebic dysentery during the war . On July 5th of the same year he was appointed lecturer. Subsequently, he dealt with the infectious genesis of plasmacellular interstitial pneumonia, as well as the effect of ACTH and corticosteroids on acute child allergies.

On August 10, 1950, after a six-month interlude at Harvard University's Boston Childrens Medical Center, Hermann Hilber was appointed adjunct professor. From 1943 to 1953 he was senior physician and deputy director at the Munich Children's Clinic, and in this position played a key role in the reconstruction of the severely damaged clinic. In 1953, he succeeded Josef Husler as head of the children's hospital in Munich-Schwabing. After the war he played a major role in building up the rickets prophylaxis . He enforced against the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior that not only doctors but also midwives were allowed to give shock therapy. The form of impact, which led to the almost complete eradication of rickets, goes back to Hilber - it was later adopted throughout Germany. Hilber also carried out the first cardiac catheterization in Bavaria.

As early as 1955–1956 he organized, together with the Red Cross, a comprehensive premature birth transport service in portable incubators . Under his direction, a department for the treatment and rehabilitation of children with poliomyelitis was set up in the children's hospital in Munich-Schwabing , which is well known far beyond Germany. In Bavaria, as a board member of the German Association for Combating Poliomyelitis , he promoted the complete oral polio vaccination, which was later introduced in other federal states. At his suggestion, the “ Pfennigparade eV” rehabilitation center was also set up , which at the time served to care for children with paralyzes and limbs, and of which he was the first chairman.

In 1969 Hilber was appointed full professor to the chair for paediatrics at the medical faculty of the Technical University of Munich. Hilber was also a co-founder of the medical faculty at the Technical University of Munich, and the municipal children's hospital in Munich-Schwabing was made available to the Technical University under him and converted into a university clinic. On June 8, 1978 he received the Bavarian Order of Merit . Hermann Hilber was involved in the training of Bavarian medical officers for decades and was a long-time member of the Bavarian Medical Committee.

In 1979, four months after his retirement, Hermann Hilber died of a heart attack and was buried in Seeon .

plant

Hermann Hilber's main areas of science included non-specific lung diseases, allergology , and problems of rickets and poliomyelitis. In addition to these focal points, Hilber wrote textbook articles, among other things, on heart diseases and skin diseases in childhood. Hilber was a strong proponent of vaccinations.

Hermann Hilber became known to another audience in 1969 when he agreed to accept orangutan twins (an extremely rare occurrence among orangutans) from Hellabrunn Zoo , who had been rejected by their mother, into his children's clinic. On April 1st of that year he had been called by the director of the zoo, Lutz Heck, a date that of course made the request less serious. The twins "Hella" and "Bruni" both survived, which was a small sensation, because not a single twin had survived to date.

literature

• K. Stehr: In memoriam Professor Dr. Hermann Hilber. In: Monthly for Pediatrics. Volume 127, 1979, pp. 470-471.
• Charlotte Nennecke: The children's clinics are recovering. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. 8/9 June 1963, p. 10.