Lorenz Heister

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Lorenz Heister

Lorenz Heister (born September 19, 1683 in Frankfurt am Main , † April 18, 1758 in Bornum am Elm ) was a German surgeon , botanist and anatomist who was best known for his surgical work and is considered the founder of scientific surgery in Germany . Its official botanical author abbreviation is “ Heist. "

Life

Lorenz Heister's father, Johann Heinrich Heister, was a floorboard merchant and landlord (“Zur Stadt Darmstadt” inn) in Fischergasse, not far from Frankfurt Cathedral . After attending grammar school in Frankfurt , Lorenz began studying medicine in Gießen in 1702, allegedly inspired by several surgical interventions that the famous Doctor Eisenbarth carried out during the Frankfurt Easter fair in 1701 in his father's inn. After continuing his studies in Wetzlar in 1703 and a study trip to Leyden in the Netherlands in 1706, he assisted field physicians in the War of the Spanish Succession, then studied mathematics, optics and mechanics. In Amsterdam he received his doctorate. med. before he went back to war as a field doctor. Then he was appointed professor at the University of Altdorf . Before taking office on November 11, 1710, he visited Oxford and Cambridge, where he also met Isaac Newton . In 1712 he married Eva Maria Hildebrandt, the daughter of a Nuremberg lawyer. In 1715 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina and in 1730 of the Royal Society . He was a foreign member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

In 1719 Heister received the call of the University of Helmstedt . In Helmstedt , Heister took over the chair of botany in addition to the medical one, he built a botanical garden that is said to have been one of the largest and most beautiful in all of Germany. Heister should be poached several times. B. go to Petersburg as personal physician to Peter the Great. However, he stayed in Helmstedt. At the beginning of April 1758 he was called to the village of Bornum am Elm , 20 kilometers away , to operate on a patient. He fell ill during the trip and died on April 18, 1758 in the parsonage there of a heated chest fever .

Heister acquired the Obere Papiermühle near Helmstedt, in Räbke am Elm, which he owned for a good decade until 1742.

A grandson of Lorenz Heister was the Bergrat and chemist Lorenz von Crell (1744-1816).

Honors

Linnaeus named in his honor the genus Heisteria from the plant family of polygalaceae (Polygalaceae). Today this name is used for a genus Heisteria Jacq. from the family of the Olacaceae used.

A street was named after him in the Frankfurt district of Sachsenhausen, as well as in the city of Altdorf near Nuremberg .

surgical instruments

Lorenz Heister developed several surgical instruments. The Heister mouth gag, which is used to prevent the patient from biting down during an oral operation , is still available today . Since no reliable anesthesia procedures existed during Heister's lifetime, this instrument was essential for performing painful interventions through the open mouth.

Works

Surgical device, illustration from Heister's Institutiones chirurgicae, in quibus quicquid ad rem chirurgicam pertinet optima et novissima ratione pertractatur . Antonio Cervone, Naples 1749

In 1712 a book appeared on the nature of cataracts , which is a clouding of the lens, which led to a scholarly dispute throughout Europe for years. In 1717 he summarized his numerous anatomical studies in the Compendium Anatomicum . Long after his death, this book was fundamental for anatomy training, not only at German universities.

In 1719 he then crowned his literary activity with the "Chirurgie" published in Nuremberg. This is a book “in which everything that belongs to Wund-Artzney is thoroughly dealt with in the newest and best way, and in many Kupffer tables the newly invented and useful instruments along with the most comfortable manipulations of surgical operations and bandages are clearly presented. “ The book, which was extremely popular in the 18th century, was also published in a simplified edition for surgeons and midwives . The numerous drawings are probably by Heister himself, he had already learned to draw thoroughly as a child, and because he was not satisfied with the copperplate engravings in his first books, he learned copperplate engraving as a professor in Altdorf. It has been translated into many languages, including Japanese. It was last published in Germany in 1779, 60 years after the first edition appeared. Because of this work, Heister is considered to be the founder of scientific surgery in Germany.

In 1717 the first edition of his "Compendium Anatomicum" appeared in Altdorf in Latin. In 1719 the edition "Compendium Anatomicum, which comprehends the whole anatomy in the most abbreviated form, translated from Latin into German." Digital copy http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10872729-1

In 1753 his work Medicinische Chirurgische und Anatomische Pernehmungen was published , published by Johann Christian Kerve in Rostock, which among other things contains around 1200 medical histories.

He also wrote several botanical writings, including:

  • Laurentii Heisteri Systema plantarum… . 1748.
  • Descriptio novi generis plantae rarissimae… . 1753.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Heister, Lorenz. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 565.
  2. ↑ Karl Hieke: The country doctor and pharmaceutical manufacturer Johann Andreas Eisenbarth (1663-1727). Publishing house Dr. Eike Pies, Sprockhövel 2002, ISBN 3-928441-42-6 , p. 64.
  3. ↑ Eike Pies: I am Doctor Eisenbarth. Road Doctor. Ariston Verlag, Geneva 1977, ISBN 3-7205-1155-3 , p. 105. In fact, in 1753 Heister described four of these operations by Eisenbarth in his work Perceptions as technically exemplary.
  4. ^ Member entry by Lorenz Heister at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on May 31, 2015.
  5. ^ Entry on Heister, Lawrence (1683 - 1758) in the archives of the Royal Society , London
  6. ^ Members of the previous academies. Lorenz Heister. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on April 3, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Joachim Lehrmann : Helmstedter and Räbker Book and Paper History , Lehrte 1994, ISBN 978-3-9803642-0-1 (p. 222ff.).
  8. ^ Carl von Linné: Critica Botanica . Leiden 1737, p. 93.
  9. ↑ Carl von Linné: Genera Plantarum . Leiden 1742, p. 341.
  10. ^ Heisteria in the US National Plant Germplasm System
  11. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names . Extended Edition. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin, Free University Berlin Berlin 2018. [1]
  12. ^ Marion Maria Ruisinger : Healing with the knife. Surgical patients from Lorenz Heister's correspondence. In: Würzburger medical history reports 25, 2006, pp. 63–73, here: p. 65.

Web links

Commons : Lorenz Heister  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Heister, Lorenz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German anatomist, surgeon and botanist
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1683
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1758
Place of death Bornum am Elm