Leopold Schönbauer

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Memorial plaque in the 1st courtyard of the Old General Hospital

Leopold Schönbauer (born November 13, 1888 in Thaya ( Lower Austria ), † September 11, 1963 in Vienna ) was an Austrian surgeon and cancer researcher. He is considered the founder of neurosurgery in Austria and represented the ÖVP in the Austrian National Council .

Life

After graduating from the grammar school in Prachatitz , Schönbauer studied medicine at the Karl Ferdinand University in Prague and graduated in 1914 from sub auspiciis imperatoris . In 1915 he suffered a gunshot wound while serving in the war . After healing, he came to a mobile team of surgeons at Anton von Eiselsberg's clinic in Vienna. After the war, Schönbauer became an assistant at Eiselsberg. In 1921 he published a report on the treatment and cure of a tetanus case with curare . This is likely to be one of the first publications on the type of treatment. Schönbauer then went on to study in Boston , Rochester (Minnesota) and Munich , where he learned from the Mayo brothers and in 1926 from Harvey Cushing (1869-1939). In 1930 Leopold Schönbauer presented a successfully operated left diaphragmatic hernia in a three-month-old infant to the Society of Surgeons in Vienna , which he corrected according to the principles generally applicable today. From his work as a consultant surgeon at the Glanzing Children's Clinic , founded in 1915 from the Jubilee Fund for Children , Leopold Schönbauer also had ample opportunity to surgically treat cases with hypertrophic pyloric stenosis and to publish his experiences in this regard in 1931.

In 1930 he returned to the Lainz Hospital in Vienna as a primary school . Initially, he had difficulties with the social democratic mayor Karl Seitz , because of reports that Schönbauer is said to have forced patients to have the medical oil donated . In this context, Seitz quoted:

“Look, Herr Primarius, politics stop here at the hospital gate. [...] "

- Karl Seitz

Eventually they both became friends. These also met Julius Tandler . On Schönbauer's order, Austria's first radiation therapy institute with the so-called Tandler radium cannon was set up in Lainz in 1931. At that time Vienna bought five grams of radium for the irradiation of cancer patients. As the third city in the world, Vienna became a center for fighting cancer.

Schönbauer worked on large parts of general and special surgery, but above all he examined problems with peritonitis, studied the diseases of the thyroid gland and the pathology and therapy of cancer. In 1922 he recommended the use of pepsin hydrochloride as an antiseptic for flushing the abdominal cavity in peritonitis. Schoenbauer produced widely acclaimed works on the pathology and therapy of cerebral edema and concussion. The text Brain Surgery: Experiences and Results (edited with Hans Hoff ) is one of the first German-language overview presentations in this area.

Schönbauer also founded neurosurgery in Austria in Lainz . In 1930 he was appointed head of the surgical department at the Lainz Hospital in Vienna (ao. Prof. 1933). Appointed Director of the Surgical Clinic at the German University of Prague in September 1938, Schönbauer was no longer able to take up this position due to the outbreak of the war and instead was director and professor at the First Surgical University Clinic in the General Hospital from 1939 to 1960 , where he worked during the Second World War his clinic to a mammoth hospital and goal for the center for Neurosurgery. He also set up a special hospital for brain, spinal cord and nerve injuries with an attached rehabilitation center . During his directorate during the Nazi era, patients were forcibly sterilized in a department of his hospital who were considered "not genetically healthy" according to the Nazi ideology. Schönbauer was a member (membership number 8,121,441) and from 1943 he was a holder of the "Silver Loyalty Service Badge" of the NSDAP. He rarely left the hospital, even slept there for weeks and took over the agendas of the medical director during the war.

With courageous personal commitment he was able to prevent the destruction caused by the fighting in the last days of the war. At first he opposed the fleeing troops of Hitler and refused to provide the general hospital as a combat position and hours later he was also able to keep the Soviet combat troops from taking the hospital. In the north-west corner of the first courtyard in the Old General Hospital, under the medical direction of Leopold Schönbauer, an operating bunker of the I. Surgical University Clinic was built in order to be able to carry out vital treatments for civilian and Wehrmacht patients in the three small operating rooms, even during air raids, which was put into operation in December 1943. In April 1945 Schönbauer was elected medical director by a resistance group in the general hospital. In this position he was accepted by the municipality of Vienna after the war and he held this position until 1961, where he and Karl Fellinger (1904-2000) still played a key role in the plans for the construction of the general hospital in Währinger Strasse. He is considered to be the savior of the General Hospital. From 1956 to 1963 Schönbauer was also President of the Vienna Rudolfinerhaus.

Vienna Central Cemetery - honor grave of Leopold Schönbauer

Until 1960 he was also the provisional director of the Institute for the History of Medicine at the University of Vienna , when it was taken over by Erna Lesky . During these years he was highly active as a medical historian and wrote his work Das Medizinische Wien in 1944 , which praised the achievements of the world-famous Viennese medicine and also cited the achievements of the Jewish doctors in Vienna, which at that time amounted to high treason. However, these fell victim to censorship in later editions. As a student son of Eiselsberg and thus the grandson of Billroth, Schönbauer was an ardent admirer of Billroth throughout his life, whom he honored in his role as medical director on the occasion of Billroth's 50th anniversary of his death in 1944 as a "genius of the German spirit" with a larger than life monument, which is clearly visible at the main entrance to the then General Hospital was set up. Since no marble was available due to the war, the memorial was first cast in plaster and, at Schönbauer's efforts, later carved in stone by the sculptor Michael Drobil (1877–1958). In the 1950s Schönbauer was a very popular doctor and known far beyond the country's borders and was even traded as a candidate for the Federal President at times .

Schönbauer remained closely connected to the Waldviertel throughout his life and often returned there in his spare time. He died on September 11, 1963, probably after a heart attack, in the stairwell on the way to a condolence visit. He rests in a grave of honor in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 32 C, number 26).

Awards and recognitions

Numerous streets and courtyards are named after Schönbauer. The Dr.-Leopold-Schönbauer-Hof in Vienna's 14th district of Penzing was built in 1970 and is named after him. In 1988 the Austrian Post issued a special postage stamp in his honor.

Fonts (selection)

In total, Schönbauer wrote over 500 publications. He devoted more than 200 papers to the specialist areas of thyroid surgery and neurosurgery, as well as cancer research. The scientific works published by him include conservative fracture treatment (1928), brain surgery (together with Hans Hoff , 1933) and his textbook of surgery (two volumes, 1950). On the history of medicine , he published The Medical Vienna (1944, 2nd edition 1947), contributions to the history of medicine (1948) and the history of anesthesia (1950); The memoirs of Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1950) , which he and Marlene Jantsch added, also appeared in 1950.

  • Medical Vienna. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin 1944.
  • History of anesthesia. Deuticke, Vienna 1948.
  • Surgery textbook. 2 volumes. Deuticke, Vienna 1950.
  • Julius Wagner-Jauregg: Memoirs. Springer, Vienna 1950 (edited and supplemented, with Marlene Jantsch ).
  • Live healthier - live longer. Europa-Verlag, Vienna 1955.
  • The Austrian hospital. Hollinek, Vienna 1959.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Julius Tandler. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (ed.); Retrieved April 28, 2011
  2. ↑ Linda Erker: 6 | Schönbauer memorial plaque. In: univie.ac.at. Retrieved August 27, 2018 .
  3. ^ Gabriela Schmidt:  Schönbauer, Leopold. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 383 f. ( Digitized version ).
  4. ^ Dr.-Leopold-Schönbauer-Hof in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
personal data
SURNAME Schönbauer, Leopold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian doctor and politician (ÖVP), member of the National Council
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Thaya , Lower Austria
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1963
Place of death Vienna