Joseph Hyrtl

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Josef Hyrtl, lithograph by Eduard Kaiser , 1850
Josef Hyrtl

Joseph Hyrtl or Josef Hyrtl (* December 7, 1810 in Eisenstadt , † July 17, 1894 in Perchtoldsdorf near Vienna) was an Austro-Hungarian anatomist .

Life

Hyrtl was born in Eisenstadt (in what was then Hungary ). He began his medical studies in Vienna in 1831. His father was an oboist in the Princely Esterhazy court orchestra in Eisenstadt. Hyrtl first came to Vienna as a choir boy . Since his parents were poor, he had to find funds for medical training.

While a medical student, he caught the attention of professors and students and was appointed Prosector of Anatomy in 1833 . In 1835 he received his doctorate. He became an assistant to Joseph Julius Czermak and later also a museum director. He gave courses in anatomy for students and in practical anatomy for physiologists .

In 1837, at the age of 26, he became a full professor of anatomy at Charles University in Prague . He was very respected there and also wrote books that have been translated into many languages. In 1845 he went to Vienna as full professor of anatomy . Five years later he wrote the Handbook of Topographical Anatomy , which became one of the most important textbooks in medical schools worldwide. In particular, he devoted himself to comparative anatomy, especially the inner ear of mammals. In 1850 he founded the Museum of Comparative Anatomy in Vienna . He also expanded the " Museum of Human Anatomy " founded by Gerard van Swieten in 1745. He supplied many anatomical museums around the world with specimens which he obtained using corrosion and injection techniques . The corrosion specimens became a worldwide commercial success.

In the fifties there was a dispute with Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke (1819-1892), since Hyrtl maintained that morphology took precedence over physiology.

In 1856 Hyrtl was elected a member of the Leopoldina and in 1859 a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1860 he was accepted into the American Philosophical Society . In 1864, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the University of Vienna, he was appointed rector because he was supposed to represent the university as the most famous professor. His inaugural speech on the materialistic worldview of our time caused a sensation. Since January 15, 1857, he was a corresponding member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences . In December 1859 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg .

In the 1860s he met the German poet Auguste Maria Conrad , b. Know Baroness von Gaffron-Oberstradam . In 1869, when he bought a villa in Perchtoldsdorf, she called herself his wife, although she was still married to Conrad at the time. It was only after Conrad's death that they were able to marry in Vienna- Alsergrund in 1870 .

In 1874 he resigned his teaching post due to increasing visual impairment and retired with his wife to the house in Perchtoldsdorf. He set up a study in the south tower of Perchtoldsdorf Castle . There he continued his research until his death. Hyrtl's successor was Karl Langer.

He donated 40,000 guilders to the university, with the interest income to support four students per year. Hyrtl and his family looked after the Göttingen prosector Ludwik Teichmann in Vienna when he was sick with typhus and Hyrtl supported him in his further career as an anatomist and physiologist.

On December 5, 1890, the Society of Doctors in Vienna appointed Joseph Hyrtl an honorary member.

On July 17, 1894, he was found dead in his bed. He donated his fortune to charitable causes , for example a church and the orphanage , which subsequently bore his name, were built in Mödling in Lower Austria . He had bequeathed part of his fortune to a children's institution in Perchtoldsdorf. His compassionate nature is also expressed in the anecdote: A doctor wanted to have discovered that rabbits can gain weight without ingesting food. But when the matter was examined more closely, it emerged that Hyrtl had always secretly fed the animals in the morning out of pity.

His brother Jakob Hyrtl (1799–1868) was a well-known Viennese engraver who bequeathed the alleged skull of Mozart to his brother Josef. Josef Hyrtl examined the skull and in turn bequeathed it to the city of Salzburg.

Joseph Hyrtl is buried in an honorary grave in the Perchtoldsdorfer Friedhof (crypt R 89-91). Hyrtlgasse was named after him in Vienna- Ottakring (16th district) .

He was an honorary member of the Academic Reading Club in Vienna and the reading and speech hall of German students in Prague.

Quote

Hyrtl monument in Mödling in front of the orphanage he donated

"So I want to speak about a matter whose daily increasing importance takes hold of every direction of human knowledge and research deeply and powerfully, and the solution of which actually falls to the learned league, as it is given in the university, which is now on me hears; - I mean: the materialistic worldview of our time. It no longer speaks out with the frivolous ridicule of Voltair and Condillacs, it no longer strives to win open hearts with the declamatory pomp of the encyclopedists, it has stepped out of the long-held path of a dogmatic system and has become aggressive against all who think differently . Her eloquence no longer calls for the applause of individuals - she appeals to the masses with the logic of facts, sometimes skilfully, sometimes learned, sometimes fanatical, but always with the winning sincerity of conviction. She has found numerous followers among the men of those sciences which have only to do with matter. It now rules over them with unrestricted power, so that on my part it takes a kind of courage to question its justification for such rule. As a passing expression of a misguided way of thinking, materialism would hardly deserve serious consideration. We ourselves could find it excusable as a hasty reaction against the all-powerful natural philosophy at the beginning of this century, where all thinking, all research of the sciences seemed to want to merge in a pure spirit. He grasped the scepter which the idealists had slipped out of the hands of the idealists, and found, since he assured himself to build his system only on facts, all the more participation, influence and dissemination than the philosophy, which in idealism was exhausted almost to the point of exhaustion, sunk to the point of disdain Indifference to all metaphysical thinking.

If, in a hurry to conclude, I summarize what has been said, I cannot explain to myself which scientific reasons are supposed to protect or justify the revival of the old, materialistic worldview of Epicurus and Lucrez and to guarantee it general or permanent rule. Observation and experience no longer speak in their favor today than they did then, and the exact method of the natural sciences, rightly praised, has done nothing to increase its durability. It is what it was then, a view, not a cognita certa ex principiis certis, as the Roman orator defined science. Their successes are not based on the clarity and invulnerability of their arguments, but on the boldness of their appearance and in the prevailing spirit of the time, which popularizes teachings of this kind the more dangerous they promise to become to the existing order of things. The earthbound titan of materialism has not brought it to a lasting victory of knowledge, nor will it, as long as serious science does not give up itself, and its strength and power rests on the foundation of established and well-understood facts, not sacrifice to the idol of opinion and consider their own cause lost. "

- Hyrtl, Josef: The materialistic worldview of our time. Inaugural speech on October 1, 1864.

Fonts

Title page of the first print
Bust (marble) of Joseph Hyrtl in the arcade courtyard of the University of Vienna, created by Johann Kalmsteiner (1845-1897), unveiled in 1889. The only monument in the arcade courtyard that was unveiled during the scientist's lifetime.
  • Comparative anatomical studies of the internal auditory organs of man and mammals. Friedrich Ehrlich, Prague 1845.
  • Lepidosis paradoxa. Monograph. Friedrich Ehrlich, Prague 1845.
  • Human anatomy textbook. Prague 1846.
  • Manual of topographical anatomy. Vienna 1847 (further edition 1853).
  • Handbook of Dissection. Vienna 1860.
  • Corrosion anatomy and its results. Vienna 1873.
  • Arabic and Hebrew in Anatomy. Vienna 1879; Reprint Wiesbaden 1966.
  • Onomatologia anatomica. History and criticism of the anatomical language of the present. Vienna 1880; Reprint, with a foreword by Karl-Heinz Weimann , Hildesheim and New York 1970.
  • The old German made-up words for anatomy. Vienna 1884; Reprint Munich 1966.

Foundation, endowment

On the occasion of his death, Hyrtl donated a considerable fortune to orphans and needy people with the foundation letters from the years 1888 and 1892. The largest part of the foundation, which came into effect even before his death, went into the construction of the Hyrtl'schen orphanage in Mödling. But other properties in Mödling and one in Perchtoldsdorf are also part of the foundation's assets. The foundation was taken over by the state of Lower Austria and has since been administered and also audited by the Lower Austrian State Audit Office.

The aim of the foundation was and is to support orphans and needy people with Austrian citizenship who live in a municipality in Lower Austria, mainly from the Mödling area.

Part of his library is located in the Thonetschlössl with the Mödling local history museum . These include works such as the Opus chirurgicum by Paracelsus , which are available on the Internet.

Roman Catholic Appreciation

In 2019, efforts were made to beatify Hyrtl. In addition to the parish of St. Othmar, Mayor Hintner is also involved .

literature

  • Hugo Glaser: Hyrtl (In: Ders., Vienna's great doctors. Vienna 1950, pp. 71–82)
  • Rudolf-Josef Gasser (Red.), Christine Mitterwenger-Fessl, Peter Karanitsch: The anatomist Joseph Hyrtl 1810-1894 . Edited by the market town of Perchtoldsdorf. Maudrich, Vienna a. a. 1991, ISBN 3-85175-538-3
  • Gregor Gatscher-Riedl: Professor, taxidermist, philanthropist and Perchtoldsdorfer: attempt to appreciate Joseph Hyrtl. In: Local history supplement [to the official gazette of the district authority Mödling], Volume 45, F. 4, (Mödling December 5, 2010), p. 3f.
  • J. Stahnke: Ludwik Teichmann (1823–1895). Anatomist in Krakow. In: Würzburger medical historical reports 2, 1984, pp. 205–267; here: p. 209 f. and 223-225.
  • Johannes Steudel:  Hyrtl, Joseph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 109 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Hyrtl, Joseph . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 9th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1863, pp. 464–469 ( digitized version ).
  • Hyrtl, Joseph. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 3, Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1965, p. 23 f. (Direct links on p. 23 , p. 24 ).
  • Hyrtl, Joseph . In: Werner Hartkopf:The Berlin Academy of Sciences. Its members and award winners 1700–1990. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1992,ISBN 3-05-002153-5, p. 163.
  • Werner E. Gerabek : Hyrtl, Joseph. In: Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 649 f.

Individual evidence

Tomb at the Perchtoldsdorf cemetery
  1. ↑ a b c Joseph Hyrtl , accessed May 7, 2010.
  2. ↑ a b c Ralf Bröer: Josef Hyrtl. In: Wolfgang U. Eckart , Christoph Gradmann (Hrsg.): Ärztelexikon. From antiquity to the present. 3. Edition. Springer Verlag, Heidelberg / Berlin / New York 2006, p. 182. Ärztelexikon 2006 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-540-29585-3 .
  3. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 121.
  4. ↑ Member History: Joseph Hyrtl. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 9, 2018 .
  5. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Josef Hyrtl. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed August 19, 2015 .
  6. ^ Hyrtl's Liebesglück in Perchtoldsdorf by Gregor Gatscher-Riedl in the NÖN local edition Mödling week 06/2011 page 38
  7. ^ Hyrtl: His retreat to Perchtoldsdorf in the NÖN week 04/2011 page 40
  8. ↑ Adolf Lorenz : I was allowed to help. My life and work. (Translated and edited by Lorenz from My Life and Work. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York) L. Staackmann Verlag, Leipzig 1936; 2nd edition, ibid. 1937, p. 85.
  9. ↑ J. Stahnke (1984).
  10. ^ Protocol of the kk society of doctors in Vienna . In: Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift . tape 3 , no. 50 . Vienna December 11, 1890, p. 979 .
  11. ↑ Honorary and war graves in the Perchtoldsdorf local cemetery. (PDF; 39 kB) In: Perchtoldsdorf.at . Retrieved September 10, 2019 .
  12. ^ P. Krause, "Catholic color students in Austria 1933 - 1983", published by the Vienna City Association of the MKV. P. 11
  13. ↑ Dr. Josef Hyrtl Waisenstiftung (PDF; 344 kB) Report of the Lower Austrian State Audit Office from June 2006, accessed on May 11, 2010.
  14. ↑ Josef Hyrtl on St. Othmar parish accessed on October 24, 2019

Web links

Commons : Josef Hyrtl  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiversity: Hyrtl, J .: Handbook of topographical anatomy (1847)  - course materials
personal data
SURNAME Hyrtl, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hyrtl, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austro-Hungarian anatomist
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH Eisenstadt , Hungary, today Austria
DATE OF DEATH July 17, 1894
Place of death Perchtoldsdorf , Austria