Leonhard Voigt

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Taddaeus Leonhard Voigt , also Thaddaeus Leonhard Voigt (born October 11, 1835 in Hamburg ; † October 23, 1925 there ) was a German doctor .

Live and act

Leonhard Voigt received a school education at the learned school of the Johanneum and the Katharineum in Lübeck , where he graduated from high school at Easter 1855. From 1856 he studied medicine at universities in Göttingen, Leipzig and Würzburg, where he completed his doctorate in the summer of 1859. During his studies in Göttingen he became a member of the Brunsviga fraternity in 1856 . From 1860 he worked as a doctor at the general hospital in his hometown and from 1863 as a poor doctor. During the Franco-German War he did military service in a hospital.

From 1870 to 1873 there was a large-scale outbreak of smallpox in Hamburg . Since the number of infected people increased only slowly, the epidemic received little attention from the population at first. The peak of the wave of disease was in the harsh winter of 1871/72, when around 4,000 people died of the infectious disease. The Hamburg Senate made only in view of this cluster of deaths determines that a regulatory prescribed obligation to smallpox vaccination was necessary and established them as one of the last authorities in Germany in 1872. In addition he called a Staatsimpfanstalt into being at the Leonhard Voigt a job as a "young intern “Received. Hermann Julian Siemssen was appointed chief vaccinator.

In January 1874, Siemssen took lymph from an already vaccinated child in order to vaccinate another child. This further vaccination from person to person was common practice at the time. Siemssen overlooked the fact that this child was showing symptoms of syphilis . The doctor then vaccinated the locksmith's son Paul Preuss with the lymph he had obtained, who then developed a severe syphilis infection. In the same year Leonhard Voigt took over Siemssen's position as head of the state vaccination institute after the latter had been removed from office. Due to the momentous vaccination of Siemssen, he had recognized that vaccinations from person to person were risky and further such cases could only be avoided if only fresh cowpox was used as the smallpox vaccine according to the procedure developed by Edward Jenner .

The use of this vaccine was considered to be absolutely uncommon, time-consuming and not always successful. Voigt visited several large "animal lymph institutes" in the Netherlands , where he learned how to obtain cowpox lymph. Then he returned to the state vaccination institute in Hamburg and organized stables for calves and a “calf vaccination room” in their basement. Voigt developed a process in which the lymph obtained from calves was treated with glycerine and its effectiveness could be improved. He completed the research on this in 1884. With the method for processing and obtaining the vaccine, the vaccination in the same building and the new development of the necessary equipment, Voigt established new standards worldwide, for which the Hamburg vaccination institute became known nationwide.

Together with Ludwig Pfeiffer, Voigt undertook animal experiments in order to further optimize the vaccine. In 1903 they presented a method in which they did not continue to vaccinate the vaccine from calf to calf, but instead used a rabbit as a "passenger animal". In 1916, five years after he had submitted a corresponding application, Voigt retired at an old age.

Honors

"Thaddäus Leonhard Voigt", Ohlsdorf cemetery

Voigt has received several awards for his services. In 1899 he received the Dannebrog Order for his advisory activities in connection with the establishment of a vaccination institute in Copenhagen . In 1900 he was awarded the Red Eagle Order, 4th class . Since he offered further training for colonial and Schutztruppe doctors in the field of vaccination, he was awarded the Royal Crown Order, 3rd class , in 1905 . In 1907 he received the title of professor in Hamburg and in 1910 the gold medal of the Académie de médecine in Paris .

Leonhard Voigt is commemorated on the collective grave plaque Doctors of the Althamburg Memorial Cemetery, Ohlsdorf Cemetery .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hermann Genzken: The Abitur graduates of the Katharineum zu Lübeck (grammar school and secondary school) from Easter 1807 to 1907. Borchers, Lübeck 1907. (Supplement to the school program 1907, digitized version ), No. 531
  2. ^ Hugo Böttger (ed.): Directory of the old fraternity members according to the status of the winter semester 1911/12. Berlin 1912, p. 211.
personal data
SURNAME Voigt, Leonhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Voigt, Taddaeus Leonhard (full name); Voigt, Thaddaeus Leonhard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1925
Place of death Hamburg