Max Burchardt (physician)

Max Burchardt ( January 15, 1831 in Naugard in Pomerania ; † September 25, 1897 in Berlin ) was a German ophthalmologist and dermatologist . Burchardt was a general physician in the Prussian army and lecturer at the University of Berlin , the University of Königsberg and at the Charité .

Life

Burchardt was born the son of a prison director. He attended the grammar schools in Guben and Schulpforta and in 1851 he moved to the Kaiser Wilhelm Academy for military medical education in Berlin. After successfully completing this, he was assigned to the Charité as a junior physician . 1855 doctorate he became Dr. med. with a dissertation on ascites . In 1857 Burchardt passed the state examination.

In the following years Burchardt was employed in various garrisons as a troop doctor until he was transferred back to Berlin as a medical officer at the Charité. A scientific trip on behalf of the army from September 1862 to March 1863 to England, France and Belgium became important for him. At the time, such educational trips were a permanent feature that was attended by numerous army doctors. In 1864 Burchardt completed his habilitation as a private lecturer at the medical faculty of Berlin University . In 1866 he took part in the campaign in Bohemia during the German War . A year later, until 1874, he was transferred to Königsberg as a garrison doctor. Here, too, he completed his habilitation at the Königsberg University as a private lecturer in medicine. In the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871, Burchardt participated as a regimental doctor.

In 1874 he returned to Berlin, where he was employed in various positions, including as senior staff doctor at the military gymnastics institute and as chief physician of the 1st Berlin garrison hospital. In 1881 Burchardt became the head physician in a department for eye patients at the Charité and, in addition to ophthalmology, also taught skin and sexually transmitted diseases. In 1890 he received the title of professor . In 1895, shortly after Georg Lewin's resignation, he headed his clinic until a successor was found with the appointment of Edmund Lesser . In 1895 Burchardt was one of the co-founders of the Berlin Ophthalmic Society, which he headed as its first chairman until his death. In 1896 he retired from military service as a general physician. Max Burchardt died on September 25, 1897, at the age of 66, in Berlin of pneumonia . The Burchardt corpuscles , round gelatinous particles that are contained in the conjunctival secretion of trachomas , are named after him.

Burchardt left behind an extensive literature of over 60 professional publications. He wrote as a co-author for the annual reports of Rudolf Virchow and August Hirsch and for Virchow's archive and the Charité-Annalen. He published numerous smaller papers on the vaccination of protective pox , whooping cough , venereal diseases in men and on scabies . He himself constructed a spray device for treating the respiratory organs, a so-called double plessimeter and a new refractive eye mirror. The fourth edition of the international vision test , which appeared in its fourth edition in 1893, and the monograph Practical Diagnostics of Simulation , which was published for the second time in 1878 , were published as independent works .

Publications (selection)

• About a form of fungus that occurs in chloasma. Berlin 1859.
• On thrush and the fungus peculiar to this disease. Berlin 1863.
• About eye tests. Berlin 1869.
• International eye tests. Berlin 1869.
• Practical diagnostics of the simulation. Berlin 1875.
• New method for determining refraction in upright images. 1883.

literature

• Julius Pagel :  Burchardt, Max . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 47, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1903, p. 380 f.
• Julius Pagel: Burchardt, Max. In: Anton Bettelheim (Hrsg.): Biographisches Jahrbuch and German Nekrolog. Volume 2, pages 52-53, Georg Reimer, Berlin 1898, ( digitized ).
• Burchardt, Max. In: Julius Pagel (Hrsg.): Biographical lexicon of outstanding doctors of the nineteenth century. Column 280–281, Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin / Vienna 1901, ( digitized ).
• Burchardt, Max. In: August Hirsch (Hrsg.): Biographical lexicon of outstanding doctors of all times and peoples. Volume 1, page 621, Urban & Schwarzenberg, Leipzig / Vienna 1884, ( digitized ).

Web links

• Burchardt, Max in the index of the German biography