Otto Walkhoff

Friedrich Otto Walkhoff (born April 23, 1860 in Braunschweig ; † June 8, 1934 in Berlin ) was a dentist , a pioneer in X-ray dental diagnostics, and a committed fighter for the interests of dentists .

biography

Otto Walkhoff, the son of a Braunschweig State Economics Council, studied dentistry in Berlin after attending school and was licensed as a dentist at the age of 21 . He worked for another two years as an assistant to his dental teacher and later father-in-law. In 1885, Walkhoff returned to Braunschweig , where he took over a dental practice. In an adjoining room of the practice, he set up a private laboratory in which he devoted himself to scientific research after completing his everyday work.

The anatomy and histology of the tooth supporting apparatus determined his research in the first time. He made a name for himself as a scientist with publications, including on the fine structure of tooth enamel and with a histological atlas of teeth. Scientific societies and professional associations made him an honorary member and awarded him awards, including several honorary doctorates . The regent of the Duchy of Braunschweig paid tribute to Walkhoff's scientific achievements in 1895 when he was appointed court dentist.

His research

O. Walkhoff; Invisible, photographically effective rays

Immediately after Röntgen's discovery became known , in January 1896, Walkhoff attempted to photograph his own teeth intraorally with an improvised X-ray device. "The necessary exposure time of 25 minutes (!) Was torture," he later described the pioneering act, which was sensationally received in specialist circles.

Walkhoff continued to work on the development of dental X-ray diagnostics. With increasingly better quality images of teeth and skull bones and their diagnostic interpretation, he provided the decisive impetus for dentistry to take control of x-ray technology. In his practice he soon ran an X-ray facility as planned. Finally, the Braunschweig medical association commissioned him to set up and look after a central X-ray station.

Walkhoff's discovery of radium in 1898 attracted the same attention as the discovery of X-rays . Using an almost unimaginable amount of 0.2 g of radium bromide, he investigated the tissue-influencing effects of radiation. The series of observations of tissue reactions to radium rays initiated by Walkhoff - partly in self-experiments - then very quickly led to the training of medical radiation research.

Walkhoff's studies on mice were of particular importance for medicine. He observed that cancerous mice exposed to radium radiation died significantly later than a comparison group of untreated mice. He initiated the development of radium therapy for the treatment of tumors.

In 1901 Otto Walkhoff gave up his private practice in Braunschweig and was appointed to the dental institute of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . In fundamental research projects, he dealt with the fine structure and pathology of teeth, including root canal treatment . The Walkhoff paste named after him, an iodoform paste to which chlorophenol-camphor-menthol (ChKM) is also added, is still used today as a therapeutic, temporary root canal filling.

In 1903 he published the results of radiological examinations which proved that the find Neandertal 1 is not a modern Homo sapiens, but a fossil Homo neandertalenis.

Walkhoff, who was President of the Central Association of German Dentists (CVdZ) from 1906 to 1926 , also devoted himself to the organizational tasks of his profession with energy and perseverance . Here, for example, it is largely due to him that the dentist status was accepted into the group of full academics in 1918 through the opportunity to obtain a doctorate as "Doctor medicinae dentariae" (Dr. med. Dent.). Previously, the degree in dentistry was assigned to the philological faculty, as these students were considered immatures - students without a high school diploma. There were high hurdles to overcome before the non-specialist Dr. phil. to attain, which then had a lower reputation than today. On November 7, 1921 he was made an honorary member of the Dental Association for Munich and Upper Bavaria . In 1922 he moved from the University of Munich to the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg .

In 1927 Otto Walkhoff was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

The last few years

In 1927, angry and frustrated, Walkhoff resigned all his offices after quarrels about himself, ended his teaching activities and retired into private life. Walkhoff was a member of the NSDAP , which he joined in 1929. In the house of his in-laws, in Berlin W.-Lichterfelde, Potsdamerstr. 59, where he spent the last years of his life, he died of heart failure on June 8, 1934.

Fonts (selection)

with Walter Hess: Textbook of conservative dentistry. H. Meusser, Berlin 1921, DNB 576864773 .
Report on the effects of chlorophenol-camphor-menthol. Berlinische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1930, DNB 576864765
The problem of dental focal infection and its control by conservative dentistry. Fischer, Jena 1931, DNB 361835078

literature

G. Rohrmeier: Friedrich Otto Walkhoff (1860-1934) - life and work. Institute for the History of Medicine, University of Würzburg 1985.

Web links

Wikisource: Texts by Otto Walkhoff - sources and full texts

Wikisource: Invisible, photographically effective rays - sources and full texts

Writings by Otto Walkhoff in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

^ Heinz Otremba: Rudolf Virchow. Founder of cellular pathology. A documentation. Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 1991, p. 31.
↑ Flora Gröning, Jan F. Kegler, Gerd-Christian Less: The digital world of the Neanderthals - Nespos, an online archive for Neanderthal research. In: Archaeological correspondence sheet. Volume 37, 2007, Issue 3, pp. 321–334, here: p. 323.
↑ Dominik Groß : Title without value? On the debate about the status of the 'Doctor medicinae dentariae' from its beginnings to the present. In: Dominik Groß and Monika Reininger (eds.): Medicine in history, philology and ethnology. Festschrift for Gundolf Keil. Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-8260-2176-2 , pp. 69-88; here: pp. 72–74.
↑ Annual report of the Dental Association for Munich and Upper Bavaria, 1926, p. 89
↑ Member entry of Otto Walkhoff at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 10, 2016.
^ Dominik Groß, Karl Frederick Wilms Dossier 2: The presidents of the DGZMK, the honorary members of the dental professional associations and their role in the "Third Reich" . Retrieved December 19, 2019.

personal data
SURNAME	Walkhoff, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Walkhoff, Friedrich Otto (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German dentist, pioneer of X-ray dental diagnostics
DATE OF BIRTH	April 23, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH	Braunschweig
DATE OF DEATH	June 8, 1934
Place of death	Berlin

[1] Heinz Otremba: Rudolf Virchow. Founder of cellular pathology. A documentation. Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 1991, p. 31.

[2] Flora Gröning, Jan F. Kegler, Gerd-Christian Less: The digital world of the Neanderthals - Nespos, an online archive for Neanderthal research. In: Archaeological correspondence sheet. Volume 37, 2007, Issue 3, pp. 321–334, here: p. 323.

[3] Dominik Groß : Title without value? On the debate about the status of the 'Doctor medicinae dentariae' from its beginnings to the present. In: Dominik Groß and Monika Reininger (eds.): Medicine in history, philology and ethnology. Festschrift for Gundolf Keil. Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-8260-2176-2 , pp. 69-88; here: pp. 72–74.

[4] Annual report of the Dental Association for Munich and Upper Bavaria, 1926, p. 89

[5] Member entry of Otto Walkhoff at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 10, 2016.

[Groß2-6] Dominik Groß, Karl Frederick Wilms Dossier 2: The presidents of the DGZMK, the honorary members of the dental professional associations and their role in the "Third Reich" . Retrieved December 19, 2019.