Johann Goercke

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Johann Goercke, General Surgeon (copper engraving from 1816 by Johann Friedrich Bolt (1769–1836))
Bust of Johann Goercke (manufacturer: R. Bellan and Co., Berlin, 19th century)

Johann Friedrich Goercke , also called Gehrcke (born May 3, 1750 in Sorquitten , Sensburg district , East Prussia ; † June 30, 1822 in Sanssouci near Potsdam , Brandenburg ), Dr. med. and Privy Medical Councilor, was a royal Prussian military doctor , surgeon and specialist book author . He was Frederick the Great's personal physician as well as the founder and rector of the Pépinière Military Doctor Academy in Berlin .

Life

His father Johann Friedrich G (o) ehrcke (1713–1758) was a pastor in Sorquitten, his mother Anna Elisabeth Apfelbaum († 1787) was the daughter of the white tanner Michael Apfelbaum . He was married to Wilhelmine Lehmann since 1799 ; the marriage remained without children.

He came to see his uncle, the regimental surgeon Apfelbaum in Tilsit . There he learned the trade and received further training in language and science. After the death of his uncle he went to the regimental surgeon Karl Philipp Gerlach in Königsberg (Dragoon Regiment No. 6). In 1767 he became a company surgeon and at the same time attended lectures at the university. In 1774 he was transferred to the king's personal company in Potsdam. There he was not only a guest in the anatomical theater, but also organized regular training for his colleagues and donated a surgical library. In 1784 he also became a pensioner surgeon at the Invalidenhaus in Berlin. After he had passed his state examination, he made an educational trip from 1787 to 1789 that took him from Vienna, Italy, France, England, Scotland and the Netherlands. In his absence he was appointed regimental surgeon in 1788 and deputy general staff surgeon Theden (1714–1797) in 1789 . When war threatened in Silesia in 1790, Goercke also had to go into the field. In 1792 he became co-director of the entire Prussian field hospital system. With the first coalition war he took part in the Rhine campaign. After Theden's death in 1797, he became a general surgeon and was thus head of the Prussian “ Militair Medicinal Wesens ” and the Charité .

He had already introduced several important innovations since 1793, the "field hospital outpatient" had existed since then, as well as suspended ambulances. On June 6, 1795, Goercke proposed the establishment of a training center for military doctors in a memorandum. Only a few weeks later, on August 2, 1795, following a cabinet order, this school was founded to train initially 50 hospital surgeons under the name “ Pépinière ” (“ nursery school ”) in Berlin's Georgenstrasse. Due to the planned construction of the Friedrichstrasse train station (1878), the move to Scharnhorststrasse became necessary in 1872.

In the course of the founding of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin (August 16, 1809; today Humboldt University ), Goercke established the “Medical-Surgical Academy for the Military”, which he and the dean of the medical faculty , Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (1762-1836), headed.

At the foundation festival of the Pépinière in 1814, Goercke and the medical officers received grateful recognition from Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher for their work on the battlefield and in the hospitals.

Goercke spent his last years at Dorotheenstrasse 2. After 55 years of service “for king and fatherland” he died on June 30, 1822 in Sanssouci and was buried in Bornstedt near Potsdam.

Services

Goercke summarized the manual and military-oriented surgery with the rather impractical academic medicine.

Memberships

Orders and decorations

Honors

  • In 1825, the doctors of the Prussian army donated a two-part memorial plaque (124 cm wide and 102 cm or 132 cm high), which was attached to a memorial in Berlin-Mitte at Scharnhorststraße 36/37, the seat of the academy founded by Goercke has been. This tablet is now kept in the Märkisches Museum .
  • In Potsdam, there has been Johann-Goercke-Allee in the Jäger-Vorstadt since September 2004
  • The officers' quarters of the Bundeswehr Medical Academy is named after him.

literature

  • Hermann Frölich:  Görcke, Johann . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, p. 371 f.
  • Uta Motschmann (Ed.): Handbook of Berlin Associations and Societies 1786–1815 . De Gruyter, 2015
  • Johann Daniel Ferdinand Neigebaur : History of the imperial Leopoldino-Carolinische German academy of natural scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann , Jena 1860, p. 240 (archive.org)
  • Stürzbecher, ManfredGoercke, Johann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , pp. 520 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Hermann Schröder: Johann Goercke . In: Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift , Volume 69, Page 972f., Munich 1922
  • Rolf Winau : Johann Goercke and the foundation of the Pépinière . In: Dahlemer Archive Talks , Volume 1, Page 47, Archive for the History of the Max Planck Society, Munich 1996
  • Kurt Pollack: Our years together - an ancestor we can be proud of: Johann Goercke , Die Ostpreußische Doktorfamilie, Easter circular 1966, p. 21f.

Web links

Commons : Johann Goercke  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch, Hans Rudolf Berndorff: That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, p. 405.
  2. ^ Member entry by Johann Görke at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on November 23, 2015.