Jost Benedum

Jost Benedum (born January 16, 1937 in Merzig ; † December 23, 2003 in Gießen ) was a German medical historian .

Life

After graduating from high school in St. Ingbert , Benedum studied classical philology at Saarland University from 1957 . He spent several semesters at the University of Giessen , the Sorbonne in Paris, the University of London and the University of Athens . In 1962 he completed the Philosophicum in Saarbrücken, and in 1964 the first state examination in Gießen. In 1966 he was with a dissertation on the elegiac late works of the Roman poet Ovid Dr. phil. PhD .

After completing his doctorate, Benedum worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Medical History at the University of Gießen, which was headed by Markwart Michler . At this time he took up a medical degree, which he completed in 1970 with the Physikum . One year after his habilitation (1972), he was appointed acting head of the Institute for Medical History in 1973.

In 1978 he received the Gießen chair for the history of medicine, which he held until his retirement . He turned down offers to the universities of Heidelberg and Düsseldorf . After his retirement in the 2001/2002 winter semester, he was acting head of the institute until summer 2003. His successor at the Institute for the History of Medicine is Volker Roelcke .

Benedum dealt with the history of medicine from ancient times to modern times. He frequently visited Greece, which became a second home for him. On the island of Kos, for example, he carried out several excavations to verify the connection between the place and the doctor Hippocrates .

In 1981 Benedum became a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz, and in 1993 a full member. At the academy, he was particularly busy with the Sömmerring edition, which he was responsible for project management. In addition, Benedum was a full member of the Scientific Society of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and, from 1994, a foreign member of the Academy of Charitable Sciences in Erfurt .

His main research interests included medical historical epigraphy and numismatics , the history of surgery and wound care , physical medicine and balneotherapy , obstetrics , paediatrics , blood transfusion , rheumatology , phytotherapy and health education , the history of the Giessen Medical Faculty, art and medicine as well as Sömmerring research and the collection of Sömmerring works.

literature

• Ulrike Enke: Obituary for Jost Benedum (1937–2003). In: News sheet of the German Society for the History of Medicine, Science and Technology. Volume 54, Issue 1 (2004), p. 10
• Werner F. Kümmel : Obituary for Jost Benedum. In: Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz, Yearbook 2005, pp. 123–124.
• Dieter Loew: Professor Dr. phil. Jost Benedum †. In: Hessisches Ärzteblatt . 3/2004, pp. 160–161 (with portrait)
• Catalog of works Prof. Dr. Jost Benedum 1967-2002. Presented by members of the Institute for the History of Medicine in Giessen on the occasion of his adoption. Edited by Ulrike Enke. Giessen: Institute for the History of Medicine, 2002

Web links

• Literature by Jost Benedum in the catalog of the German National Library