Richard Koch (medic)

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Richard Koch in 1906
(as a one-year volunteer in Karlsruhe)

Richard Hermann Koch (born September 3, 1882 in Frankfurt am Main ; † July 30, 1949 in Jessentuki in the Caucasus / USSR ) was a German doctor , balneologist , internist , medical historian and medical theorist .

Life

In 1906, Koch served as a one-year volunteer in Karlsruhe . He studied medicine in Lausanne, Munich, Heidelberg and Berlin. In 1909 he received his doctorate in Leipzig. From 1910 to 1911 he was a volunteer assistant to the physician Ludolf von Krehl in Heidelberg . He later practiced as an internist in Frankfurt am Main, where he received a teaching position for the history of medicine at the university in 1917 . In 1920 he completed his habilitation in Frankfurt am Main and became a private lecturer , and in 1926 associate professor for the history of medicine. A medical history seminar was founded in the Frankfurt Medical Faculty in 1926 on his initiative.

He worked as a Jewish lecturer in the Free Jewish Teaching House in Frankfurt am Main, which was founded in 1920 . He was friends with its founder, Franz Rosenzweig , and he was also his doctor. Koch was also the medical editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

In 1935 the Institute for the History of Medicine was closed at the instigation of the National Socialists . A year later, Richard Koch fled Germany to the Soviet Union. From 1936 to 1949 he lived and worked as a doctor in the Caucasian seaside resort of Essentuki. Here he dealt intensively with Jewish culture, learned Hebrew, translated psalms and wrote reflections on the Haggadah and other scriptures and customs.

Koch and his family had to flee to Georgia before the German Wehrmacht's Caucasus offensive in 1942 . When he returned to Essentuki, his extensive library was stolen.

In addition to his scientific work and religious writings, Koch left an unfinished autobiography , which was published in 2004 under the title Time Before Your Time. Autobiographical record appeared. From his extensive correspondence, in particular, his detailed reflections on the history of medicine, which he sent on July 30, 1945 to the medical historian Henry E. Sigerist (1891–1957). Sigerist had accepted a position in Baltimore from Leipzig in 1932 .

In his treatise The Medical Diagnosis , Koch divided the "means of diagnosis" into three groups, the first of which includes "perception", the second the "examination" and the third "all other means of diagnostic knowledge and diagnostic behavior".

family

Richard Koch married Maria Rosenthal in 1914. The couple had five children, all of whom were born in Frankfurt: Naomi Laqueur (1920–1995, née Barbara Koch, married to Walter Laqueur ), Helen Elder (née Hanna, married to Robert Elder), Eva (Chava) Weiss, Gertrude Koch and Friedrich Koch. They all left Germany between 1936 and 1938. Gertrude and Friedrich followed their parents to Essentuki, while Naomi and Eva went to Palestine and Helen to the United States. With the exception of Naomi, who lived mostly in England after 1955, all the children settled in the countries to which they had fled. Her mother Maria also stayed in Essentuki until her death in 1973.

Publications

  • The medical diagnosis - contribution to knowledge of medical thought . Bergmann, Wiesbaden 1917
  • Time before your time. Autobiographical records . Edited by Frank Töpfer and Urban Wiesing. (Medicine and Philosophy Series; 8). Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3772822266
  • The prayer . In: Kalonymos. Contributions to German-Jewish history from the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute , Duisburg, issue 2/2004, pp. 4–6 ( PDF )
  • Letter to Henry E. Sigerist dated July 30, 1945 . Edited by Frank Töpfer and Urban Wiesing. University of Tübingen, Tübingen 2005 ( full text )

literature

  • Udo Benzenhöfer : Medical truth - patient truth. Franz Rosenzweig, his illness and his doctors (with special reference to Richard Koch and Viktor von Weizsäcker). Klemm & Oelschläger, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-932577-94-9 .
  • Udo Benzenhöfer: The Frankfurt doctor, medical historian and medical theorist Richard Koch. In: Udo Benzenhöfer (Ed.): Ehrlich, Edinger, Goldstein et al .: Frankfurt University Doctors to Remember. Klemm & Oelschläger, Münster / Ulm 2012, ISBN 978-3-86281-034-5 , pp. 109–126.
  • Uwe Böhm: Koch, Richard. 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. 767.
  • mb : Dr. Richard Koch. "What would Salvarsan be if it didn't come from a Jew?" In: Kalonymos. Contributions to German-Jewish history from the Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute, Duisburg. 7, H. 1, 2004, ISSN  1436-1213 , p. 8 f., Online (PDF; 274 kB) .
  • Gert Preiser (Ed.): Richard Koch and the medical diagnosis. Olms et al., Hildesheim 1988, ISBN 3-487-07768-X ( Frankfurt contributions to the history, theory and ethics of medicine 1).
  • Karl Eduard Rothschuh : Richard Hermann Koch (1882–1949). In: Medical History Journal. Volume 15, 1980, pp. 16-43 and 223-243.
  • Frank Töpfer, Urban Wiesing (eds.): Richard Koch and Franz Rosenzweig. Writings and letters on sickness, dying and death. Agenda-Verlag, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-89688-079-9 .
  • Frank Töpfer, Urban Wiesing: The Medical Theory of Richard Koch I: Theory of science and ethics. In: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. 8. 2005, ISSN  1386-7423 , pp. 207-219.
  • Frank Töpfer, Urban Wiesing: The Medical Theory of Richard Koch II: Natural philosophy and history. In: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. 8, 2005, pp. 323-334.
  • Johannes Vesper: Review of "Time Before Your Time." In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt. 101, 41, 2004, ISSN  0012-1207 , S. A2746, online (PDF; 48.50 kB) .
  • Karl E. Rothschuh:  Koch, Richard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 274 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Uwe Böhm: Koch, Richard. 2005, p. 767.
  2. ↑ a b Guide to the Richard Koch Family Collection 1890s-1993 (see web links )
  3. ↑ Calonymos . Contributions to German-Jewish history from the Salomo Ludwig Steinheim Institute at the University of Duisburg-Essen, issue 1/2009 (12th year), p. 1 f.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang U. Eckart : History, Theory and Ethics of Medicine , Springer Textbook, 8th revised edition, Springer Germany 2017, p. 316. ISBN 978-3-662-54659-8 . E – book: ISBN 978-3-662-54660-4 . doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-662-54660-4 .
  5. ↑ Naomi attended the agricultural school in the Ben Shemen Children's and Youth Village .
personal data
SURNAME Koch, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Koch, Richard Hermann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Doctor, medical historian and medical theorist
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH July 30, 1949
Place of death Essentuki , Caucasus, USSR