Karl Bernhard Lehmann

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Karl Bernhard Lehmann, 1890

Karl Bernhard Lehmann (born September 27, 1858 in Zurich ; † January 28, 1940 in Würzburg ) was a German doctor, bacteriologist and hygienist . He is considered one of the pioneers in microbiology and industrial hygiene in Germany.

origin

His grandfather was the mayor of Frankenthal, Karl Lehmann himself was a son of the German doctor Friedrich Lehmann from Frankenthal (Palatinate) and his wife Friederike, née Spatz from Speyer , who lived in Switzerland. His brothers were the painter Wilhelm Ludwig Lehmann and the publisher Julius Friedrich Lehmann

education

Karl Bernhard Lehmann attended the Beust'sche private school and grammar school in Zurich. He studied chemistry, zoology and medicine in Zurich. After graduating in 1881 Lehmann worked for 2 years as an assistant at Ludimar Hermann (1838-1914) at the Institute of Physiology and was in 1883 with the work On the Influence of comprimierten oxygen to the vital processes of cold-blooded and some oxidations Dr. med. PhD. From 1884 he worked at the Hygiene Institute in Munich at Pettenkofer , and refined his chemical and physiological expertise with Carl von Voit and Max Rubner . Lehmann completed his habilitation in hygiene in 1886.

Activity and research

As a pupil of Pettenkofer, Lehmann began researching the most important industrial gases in 1884 while still studying in Munich. With his move to Würzburg (1887) and the establishment of the Institute for Hygiene, important toxicological research took place under his leadership in collaboration with Ferdinand Flury from the Pharmacological Institute.

From 1894 to 1932 Lehmann was a full professor of hygiene at the University of Würzburg, where he chaired the meeting of the Physico-Medical Society on January 23, 1896, at which Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen reported on his discovery of X-rays and called them X-rays began. From 1896, together with Rudolf Otto Neumann (1868–1952), he published a bacteriological manual and textbook , which in its various editions contains the first description of numerous types of bacteria. Lehmann and Flury defined harmless limit values ​​for over 100 substances, which they published in 1938 and which formed the basis of the later MAK values .

Looking back, three of Lehmann's research areas stand out in particular: nutritional physiology, bacteriology and industrial hygiene. In the field of nutritional physiology, Lehmann dealt extensively with various preservatives and luxury foods. As far as bacteriology is concerned, in cooperation with Rudolf Otto Neumann he worked out a classification in this area, which was intended to bring order in the confusion of numerous new descriptions of bacteria. The very remarkable result was published as an atlas and outline of bacteriology . There is no doubt that Lehmann has done most of its work in industrial hygiene. It is thanks to him that this area of ​​hygiene has developed into a branch of science in its own right. He summarized his accumulated experience in 1919 in his short textbook on industrial and industrial hygiene .

In the early years of his work in Würzburg, Lehmann had to make do with extremely limited space. Remedy was only created in 1902 and 1910 by the affiliation of the former Pharmacological Institute and the bacteriological research institute. In 1921 the move to the spacious premises of the former pathological institute took place. The Würzburg Institute founded by Lehmann, initially housed in two of the five approved rooms of the Medical College House built between 1850 and 1853, developed into the most important hygienic-toxicological research facility in Germany between the First and Second World Wars. The racial hygienist Ludwig Schmidt , who had started his career at Lehmann as a proper assistant, completed his habilitation in 1927 with him. In autumn 1932 he took the state examination for the last time. In 1933 Lehmann was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

family

He married his cousin Amalie Spatz (1865–1960), a daughter of the senior building officer Ludwig Spatz (1818–1879), in Munich in 1887 . His brother-in-law Bernhard Spatz (1856–1935) was the editor of the Munich medical weekly from 1885 to 1929. Lehmann and his wife had two sons and three daughters, including:

  • Friedrich (1888–1978), publisher and bookseller in Munich
  • Gertrud Helene ∞ Ernst Seifert (1887–1969), professor of surgery in Würzburg
  • Hilde (1892–1990), social-educational specialist, founded the Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Heim in Mellen (today Mellensee), worked in her father's hospital in Würzburg and founded the private children's home "Haus am Berg" in Wertheim, later at the mother's Work of recovery.

Publications

  • with Flury: toxicology and hygiene of technical solvents. Berlin 1938.
  • Happy life work. Memories and confessions of a hygienist and naturalist. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1933.
  • About the health conditions of workers in the German ceramic industry, especially the porcelain industry, with special consideration of the tuberculosis question. Berlin 1929.
  • Industrial dust, its importance to workers' health, and recent advances in its prevention and control. Leipzig 1925.
  • The German lead paint industry from the point of view of hygiene. Berlin 1925.
  • Short textbook on industrial and commercial hygiene. Leipzig, 1919.
  • The importance of chromates for worker health. Berlin, 1914.
  • Expert opinion of the Reich Health Council regarding the sewage disposal of the city of Offenbach a. Main. Berlin, 1913.
  • On the psychology and hygiene of luxury foods. Wuerzburg, 1912.
  • Lehmann / Neumann: Atlas and outline of bacteriology and textbook of special bacteriological diagnostics. 1st edition Munich, 1896; from the 7th edition 1926/27 on as bacteriology, especially bacteriological diagnostics.

literature

  • Heinz SeeligerLehmann, Karl Bernhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 71 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • the same: 100 years of the Chair of Hygiene in Würzburg (lecture given on the occasion of the academic ceremony for the institute's anniversary on November 13, 1987). In: Würzburger medical historical reports 6, 1988, pp. 129-139
  • Dietrich Henschler : Karl Bernhard Lehmann and occupational safety - a century of Würzburg supremacy. In: Würzburger medical history reports 6, 1988, pp. 139–148.
  • Susanne Pritze: The work of Professor Karl Bernhard Lehmann in Würzburg with special consideration of his work in the areas of hygiene and microbiology. Medical dissertation in Würzburg 1983.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Lehmann, Karl Bernhard: German Biographical Encyclopedia. Vol. 6 . Ed .: Killy, Walter; Vierhaus, Rudolf. Munich; Leipzig 1997, p. 294 .
  2. ^ Heinz Otremba: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. A life in the service of science. A documentation with a scientific appreciation by Walther Gerlach . Franconian Society Printing Office, Würzburg 1970, pp. 9–12.
  3. Ute Felbor: Racial Biology and Hereditary Science in the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg 1937–1945. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1995 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Supplement 3; also dissertation Würzburg 1995), ISBN 3-88479-932-0 , pp. 37 and 47.
  4. ^ Richard Kraemer: Würzburg physicians 50 years ago. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 5, 1987, pp. 165-172, here: p. 166.