Jacques Joseph

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Jacques Joseph (1865-1934)

Jacques Joseph (born September 6, 1865 in Königsberg (Prussia) ; † February 12, 1934 in Berlin , called " Nasenjoseph ") was one of the most important plastic surgeons of the early 20th century and can be regarded as its founder. Above all, Joseph is considered a pioneer of rhinoplasty .

Career

Joseph began studying medicine at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin in 1885, which he successfully completed in 1889. He then held assistants in the Berlin municipal hospital in Friedrichshain and in the Berlin children's outpatient clinic and wrote a dissertation on a certain form of tuberculosis . First he ran a general practice in Kreuzberg and gave gymnastics courses for children. But his goal was to become a surgeon , so he applied to Julius Wolff at his renowned clinic. From 1892 he worked there at the Berlin University Policlinic in the field of orthopedics Surgery.

In 1896, the mother of a young boy turned to Joseph for help. The boy no longer wanted to go to school because of his large and protruding ears and she had no other advice than to have his ears operated. Joseph initially refused because there was no medical need for the operation, but reversed this decision and operated on the child in secret, as he did not dare to inform his boss about the experiment. Joseph presented the novel surgical procedure to the Berlin Medical Society in October 1896 , where he received much recognition for it. Wolff then gave him notice without notice.

Joseph then reopened a private practice in which he now worked surgically. It was here that he performed his first rhinoplasty in 1898 . He operated on a man who hardly dared to leave the house and suffered from sadness. In 1907 he had already operated on 200 noses, intranasally and without visible scars since 1904, he replaced bones and cartilage with ivory and had developed his own surgical instruments - one of them the raspatory , which is still used today in cosmetic surgery as "the Joseph".

During the First World War he was extremely successful in the field of reconstructive surgery. The surgical work he performed there with facial reconstructions on the often horribly disfigured war casualties was recognized as exceptional. In 1915, Kaiser Wilhelm II personally offered him a professorship for plastic surgery at the Charité - but on the condition that he converted from Judaism to Christianity. Joseph refused. On June 20, 1916, Jacques Joseph took over a department for facial plastic surgery at the Ear and Nose Clinic headed by Carl Adolf Passow , formerly Trautmann's Ear Clinic at the Charité. The aim was to care for the large numbers of war casualties with mostly devastating facial injuries caused by the First World War.

In 1916, however, he was appointed head of the newly established Department of Facial Plastic Surgery at the Charité and in 1919, although no longer by the Kaiser, was appointed professor. He left the Charité in 1922 and worked from then on in his own practice.

During the Weimar Republic, Joseph was one of the most famous cosmetic surgeons in the world. He also operated on patients from all over the world, on the other hand colleagues from all over the world came to observe in his practice. Both patients and colleagues paid depending on their own financial situation. At the same time he tried to develop objective criteria, such as B. should look a nice nose. This was based on z. B. his profile protractor for noses.

However, his great success could not prevent that as a Jew, like all other Jewish doctors, he lost his health insurance license and was only able to treat statutory health insurance patients on the basis of humiliating special approval procedures. He was arrested several times by the National Socialists, but did not want to leave Germany as he probably misjudged the situation.

Grave of Joseph in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee

Joseph died of a heart attack on February 12, 1934. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee. Only obituaries appeared in the few newspapers that were not harmonized by the National Socialists . An obituary only appeared in the Cosmetological Review. This ended with the sentence that Jacques Joseph always wished to help "both in his professional life and in his private life" to the extent that "the supported person could not only vegetate but also have a little joy."

The "Nose Joseph"

It is interesting how “Nasenjoseph” got its name: In Berlin in the 1920s, five doctors were well known who had the surname Joseph. In order to differentiate them, the vernacular gave Joseph's nickname: the dermatologist was called "Hautjoseph" or Hoseph, the internist "Magenjoseph" or Moseph, the urologist became "Bladder Joseph" or Bloseph, the gynecologist was "Damenjoseph" and last but not least became the surgeon Jacques Joseph to "Nose Joseph" or Noseph.

Work and action

His book “Nose plastic and other facial plastic, along with an appendix on breast plastic and some other operations in the field of external body plastic. An Atlas and Textbook “is still a standard work in plastic surgery today. On the 70th anniversary of Joseph's death in 2004, the work was reprinted by Kaden-Verlag Heidelberg. Today the memory of Jacques Joseph is held in honor by his specialist colleagues in many countries. The reconstruction of the Joseph grave in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee, which was ceremoniously concluded on October 17, 2004 with the stone consecration, turned out to be a highlight of the Joseph honor in Berlin.

Walter Briedigkeit and Hans Behrbohm and the plastic surgeon and sculptor Christian Bahr, who created a new bust of "Nasenjoseph", made special efforts to bring Jacques Joseph's memory to the public. It is now accessible to the public in the Charité's sculpture collection.

On Joseph's 150th birthday in September 2015, a new biography of the surgeon was published by Washington-based German medical historian and science author Ronald D. Gerste .

literature

Web links

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  1. a b c d e f g Jacques Joseph (1865–1934). A journey through the history of cosmetic surgery by Annelie Ramsbrock, Free University of Berlin
  2. ^ Page of the Kaden-Verlag about Jacques Joseph
  3. ^ Author at the publisher
  4. blurb from the publisher