Karl August Weinhold

Karl August Weinhold (born October 6, 1782 in Meißen , † September 29, 1829 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German medic .

Life

Weinhold first attended the city school in his hometown. In 1796 he came to the Kollegium medico-chirurgicum in Dresden and went to the Prague military hospital for practical training. In 1798 he passed his military surgical examination in Dresden, was a company surgeon with the Saxon infantry regiment Prince Anton and returned in 1802 to the college in Dresden for further training. Weinhold was released from military service in 1803 and began studying at the University of Wittenberg .

Here he heard philosophy from Johann Christian August Grohmann , history from Johann Matthias Schröckh , experimental physics from Christian August Langguth , pathology from Traugott Karl August Vogt , therapy from Burkhard Wilhelm Seiler and botany from Johann Friedrich Erdmann . In 1804 he was examinated pro canditatura, whereupon he undertook an educational trip to Berlin , Paris , Würzburg , Vienna , northern Germany, Denmark and southern Sweden . Returning to Wittenberg , he received his doctorate on December 28, 1805 under Vogt with de paresos et methodi pareticae dignitate, tentamen ad contradictiones tollendas, super inflammationi inprimis pnevmoniae a debilitate ortae, methodo medendi ortas as a doctor of medicine .

He decided to take further trips to various educational institutions and in 1806 opened a practice in his hometown. After him from King Friedrich Wilhelm III. was awarded the title of court counselor by Prussia , he turned down a professorship in Dorpat in 1809 and then traveled to Italy . Via Munich he returned to Wittenberg in 1810, where he acquired the highest philosophical degree on April 30th. When Weinhold had made further trips, he became a doctor in Dresden in 1811, was employed there as a teacher at the newly founded Surgical Medical Academy and in 1816 took over the post of royal Prussian government and medical councilor in Merseburg .

In 1817 he accepted the position of professor for surgery at the newly unified University of Halle-Wittenberg , and during his time traveled to London and Copenhagen. Weinhold had been director of the ophthalmological institute in Halle. Above all, he is remembered with his small published work from 1827 "von der überpopulation". In this treatise "reverently presented" to the Royal Prussian State Ministry, Weinhold recommends the following as a means of preventing overpopulation:

“As a general and urgently necessary measure, I propose a kind of indissoluble infibulation with soldering and metallic sealing, which cannot be opened other than forcibly, quite suitable to prevent the act of procreation until the point of marriage. This kind of indissoluble infibulation has already rendered me the most effective service in several individuals who, through self-defilement, keep themselves put into an almost incurable nervous weakness. It is applied from the age of fourteen and immediately up to the point of entry into marriage with those individuals who demonstrably do not have so much wealth to be able to nourish and educate the beings created out of wedlock to the point of lawful self-discovery. It stays with those who never come into the logo to be able to feed and maintain a family. The process is as simple and easy to carry out as the vaccination of the protective leaves. "

Then the operation itself is described:

The operation itself is easy and almost entirely painless; likewise the soldering and metallic sealing, which latter is my invention. The foreskin is pulled forward and gently wedged between a pair of pierced metal plates, so that the piercing of a hollow needle with a lead wire four to five inches long can hardly be felt. If the wire is pulled through, it is bent in such a way that it cannot press the parts that are close by; Both egg tips are brought closer together in front and melted together by means of a small soldering iron. As soon as the soldered point, which is the size of a lens, has cooled down, a small metal stamp is pressed on while holding a solid body against it and this is taken into safekeeping.

This makes it quite impossible to open the infibulation and to close it again secretly without a stamp, without it being discovered during the next examination. The control over the legal and illegal opening of the same belongs to a forensic and medical authority, as well as the punishment of the violent and secret opening of this metallic seal to such an authority in the first instance. The secret and violent opening, which may be made by individuals aged 14 to 17, will be punished with rods regardless of the person.

But the one that occurred between the ages of 18 and 24 with the treadmill, which should be best suited to pull the surplus of voluptuous power from the tools of procreation into the work-shy arms and legs, and those of the 25 to 30 years of age immediately carried out, especially in repeated cases with such a prison sentence with water and bread that society would be forever secured from sinking into impoverishment through the unlawful desire of careless and dissolute people. What crimes it would prevent!

Weinhold therefore demands that the following should be infibulated:

1. all beggars and all other impoverished people living outside marriage;
2. all disabled people who suffer from long-term illnesses and who have already received alms from the commune;
3. all male servants, journeymen and apprentices in the cities and in the country;
4. all unmarried military personnel in the lower grades;
5. Since in the free state equality of all citizens must take place before the law, the distinguished and often very exuberant youth of the exiled cannot remain exempt, insofar as they exceed the limits of morality, but will have to submit to the same law with some modifications.

With his political science proposal, he has caused a lot of resentment. Even in his day, he was criticized for his ideas. Nevertheless, he enjoyed an excellent reputation as a surgeon and ophthalmologist. In addition to his books, he has published technical articles in various specialist journals.

Honors

In 1819 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina . He was a member of several other learned societies and knights of the Red Eagle Order .

Writings and works

• The art of healing outdated skin ulcers. Dresden 1807
• Graphite as a newly discovered remedy for lichen. Leipzig 1808. 1812
• Instructions to fold the darkened crystal body in the human eye with its capsule at any time. Meissen 1809
• About the abnormal methamorphoses of the Hyghmors Cave. Leipzig 1810
• Physical experiment on magnetism. Meissen 1812
• About the healing of an eye that has been almost completely destroyed by external violence and a new application of galvanism. 1813
• The Elbe Bridge to Dresden, shown historically. Dresden 1813
• Dresden and its fate in 1813. 1813
• Critical looks at the nature of nervous fever. 1814
• Cosmopolitan illumination of that word about the relationship of the Saxon cabinet to the allied powers. 1813
• Arndt and Kotzebue as a political script. 1814
• Napoleon and the French people. 1814
• About a violent one, the Egypt. Ophthalmia-like epidemic eye disease. Dresden 1815
• Memorial of October 18th and foundation of a German house in Merseburg for orphaned children of German warriors. Hall 1815
• About the restoration of the old Merseburg beer and its healing power against weak nerves and emaciation. Leipzig 1816
• Rescue of honor Lofer and some remarks on Rasoris Contrastimulus. 1817
• Experiments on life and its basic forces by means of experimental physiology. Magdeburg 1817
• On the diseases of the facial bones, etc. Halle 1818
• Encouragement to fight in the spirit of time, against the spirit of darkness. 1819
• De luxatione ossis humeri in universe. 1819
• Eyclus, an experiment on the finite culture of the human race in the sciences and the arts. Leipzig 1822
• De artionlatione spuria et nova eam curandi methodo. Hall 1822
• Illumination of a diatribe by the personal surgeon Hedenus. Hall 1822
• One more word about the persecution of Hedenus and his consorts. 1822
• Of the predominant reproduction of human capital against working capital and labor, in the civilized European countries, along with some medical-police proposals to restore the balance between prosperity and poverty. Leipzig 1828
• About the population and industry, or critical evidence that the population in highly cultured countries always rush to industry. 1828
• About the human misery brought about by the abuse of procreation. 1828
• The balance of the population, as the basis of the welfare of society and families. 1829

literature

• New necrology of the Germans. 7th year 1829, 2nd part, Ilmenau 1831, p. 677, no. 323 ( online )
• Julius Pagel :  Weinhold, Karl August . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 41, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, p. 504 f.
• Johann Christian Poggendorff : Biographical-literary concise dictionary for the history of the exact sciences. Volume 2, Verlag Johann Ambrosius Barth, Leipzig 1863, p. 1285 ( online )
• Ludwig Stieda : Anatomical-archaeological studies 1901-1902. JF Bergmann Verlag, Wiesbaden 1901, Volume 15-16, pp. 26-28
• New Wittenberger Wochenblatt. 1806, p. 35
• Matriculation of the University of Wittenberg.

Web links

• Entry on Karl August Weinhold in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis

Individual evidence

1. ^ List of members Leopoldina, Karl August Weinhold