Robert Meyer (doctor)

Robert Meyer

Robert Meyer (born January 11, 1864 in Hanover , † December 12, 1947 in Minneapolis ) was a German gynecologist and pathologist .

Live and act

Robert Meyer was born in Hanover as the third of five children to a middle-class family. His father died when he was 14 years old. He graduated from high school in 1883 at Lyceum II in Hanover. He then went to Leipzig with his older brother , where he began studying medicine . His teachers here were Wilhelm His ( anatomy , histology , embryology ), the physiologist Carl Ludwig and the surgeon Carl Thiersch . After the death of his brother, Meyer left the University of Leipzig in the summer of 1884 to continue his studies at the University of Heidelberg . Here he heard comparative anatomy with Carl Gegenbaur and physics with Robert Wilhelm Bunsen . After the engagement with his cousin, whom he married six years later, Robert Meyer changed in October 1884, the University of Strasbourg . Here he met the anatomist Gustav Schwalbe , the physicist August Kundt , the internist Adolf Kussmaul and the pathologist Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen . At von Recklinghausen Meyer learned the basics of pathology. However, he did not become a pathologist himself, but later, influenced by Wilhelm Alexander Freund , a gynecologist . After graduating on December 29, 1888, the issuance of approval on January 4, 1889, he was on 16 March 1889 he was charged with a dissertation "A case of static reflex spasm" doctorate . Then Robert Meyer initially wanted to become a general practitioner . He went to Berlin for further training there. At the Friedrichshain hospital he worked as a volunteer with Paul Fürbringer and met Robert Koch at the Moabit hospital .

At the request of his mother, Robert Meyer left Berlin in 1890 and took over a country doctor's practice in Dedeleben in what was then the province of Saxony (now the Harz district in Saxony-Anhalt ). Here he was also active in surgery and as an obstetrician . At the age of 30, he and his family left the town again in 1894 to go back to work in Berlin.

Here he started again as a volunteer at Johann Veit's clinic . This entrusted him with the pathology laboratory of the clinic. During this activity he also worked with Carl Ruge and Otto Lubarsch . In 1908, Meyer was given the management of the pathological laboratory at the Charité women's clinic by Ernst Bumm . Associated with this was the appointment as titular professor , which took place without Meyer's habilitation . He retained his position as a pathologist under Bumm's successor, Karl Franz , before he followed him to the University Women's Clinic on Artilleriestrasse in 1912, where he was appointed as successor to Carl Ruge. He made a room available to Ruge for private examinations.

From 1914 to 1918 Robert Meyer did military service in Brussels during the First World War, only to return to Berlin afterwards. Meyer continued to work as a gynecological pathologist under Walter Stoeckel , who succeeded Bumm in 1926 as head of the university women's clinic. On February 23, 1932 he was appointed honorary professor.

During the Nazi era , Robert Meyer had to take the oath of public officials in August 1934 . His involvement in World War I and the efforts of Walter Stoeckel prevented his immediate release. In 1935 he was officially dismissed from his position. However, he was allowed to continue to work at the clinic free of charge . On February 22, 1936, Meyer was revoked because of his Jewish descent from his teaching license and the title of honorary professor was revoked.

Ultimately it was no longer possible for Walter Stoeckel to prevent Meyer's discharge from clinical service. By letter of December 1, 1938, even the unpaid activity was prohibited by the responsible ministry. But another circumstance came to Meyer: His student, the pathologist Carl Fahrig (1882-1942), from 1934 prosector at the Oskar-Ziethen Hospital, officially took over Meyer's private practice in 1938 and supported him in his emergency by studying the private histology of Meyer's former patient had them embedded and stained in the laboratory of the Oskar-Ziethen Hospital and unofficially left Meyer to evaluate the preparations in his private home (Witzleben-Platz in Charlottenburg). As a letter from Meyer before he left Germany shows, another colleague named Treite must have helped him. Scientifically, Robert Meyer had also worked closely with Carl Kaufmann , whose activities "rested" during the Second World War, as the regime at the time did not consider him sufficiently reliable due to his uncompromising attitude towards Meyer. Meyer had been offered a position as Clinical Associate Professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the university there at the end of May 1939 at the instigation of John L. McKelvey, the director of the women's clinic at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He emigrated to the USA on September 1, 1939, almost at the last minute . The original plan of a flight from Berlin to the Netherlands had to be abandoned because of the invasion of Poland . The 75-year-old Meyer and his wife therefore traveled by train and ship to the USA, where they arrived in Minneapolis on September 21, 1939. He received American citizenship on December 14, 1945.

From 1939 to 1947 Meyer was active as a researcher in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and worked as a gynecopathologist for the Minnesota State Board of Health. In June 1947 he left the university. Robert Meyer died of stomach cancer in late 1947 at the age of 83 .

Scientific achievements

With Carl Ruge, Robert Meyer published pioneering work on the formation of the corpus luteum and the menstrual cycle , as well as the early diagnosis of cancer. Both are considered the founders of gynecopathology.

In 1903 he described scar endometriosis and in 1909 endometriosis in the sigmoid colon , a section of the large intestine , and in lymph nodes . In 1919 he developed the metaplasia theory of the development of the disease.

Meyer also published on the systematics of ovarian tumors and the development and classification of granulosa cell tumors , as well as the embryonic development of the female genitalia.

Fonts (selection)

• Robert Meyer: A case of static reflex spasm. Dissertation , University of Strasbourg 1889
• Robert Meyer: About the state of the art of adenomyositis and adenomas in general and especially about adenomyositis seroepithelialis and adenomyometritis sarcomatosa. Zbl Gynäkol 43 (1919), 745-50
• Robert Meyer: About epithelial structures in the myometrium of the fetal and child uterus. Berlin, 1899
• Robert Meyer: To the anatomy and development history of the ureter doubling. Virchow's Archives for Pathological Anatomy and Physiology and for Clinical Medicine 87 (1907), 408
• Robert Meyer, Frans Moraller, E. Hoehl: Atlas of the normal histology of the female sexual organs. Leipzig, 1912
• Robert Meyer: About different manifestations of the ovarian tumor known as the Brenner type, its secretion from the granulosa cell tumors and assignment to other ovarian tumors. Arch Gynäkol 148 (1932), 548
• Robert Meyer, Emil Novak: Autobiography of Dr. Robert Meyer (1864-1947): a short abstract of a long life. With a memoir of Dr. Meyer by Emil Novak . Henry Schuman, 1949. (First published as: "A Short Abstract of a Long Life. To my friends in the United States of America". J Hist Med All Sci (1947) II (4): 419-450 [1] ; (1948) III (1): 125-160 [2] ; (1948) III (2): 315-354 [3] .)

literature

• Gisela Dallenbach-Hellweg: Dr. Robert Meyer. Int J Gynecol Pathol 20: 289-308 (2001).
• Volker Becker: Carl Ruge. 100 years of debris diagnosis. Arch Gynecol Obstet 227 (1979), 193-204, doi : 10.1007 / BF02109621 .
• Helmut Kraatz : Robert Meyer's personality. Z Humboldt University Berlin, Math.-Nat. R. XIII (1964), 531-36.
• L.-H. Kettler: Robert Meyer's scientific life's work from the point of view of the general pathologist. Wiss Z Humboldt University Berlin, Math.-Nat. R. XIII (1964), 537-42.
• H. Lax: The importance of Robert Meyer's work for the teaching of the cycle. Wiss Z Humboldt University Berlin, Math.-Nat. R. XIII (1964): 543-45.
• Felix von Mikulicz-Radecki : On the 100th birthday of Robert Meyer. Münchn Med Wschr 106 (1964), 1865-69.
• Walter Stoeckel : Robert Meyer (1864-1947). Zbl Gynecol, 2–7.
• Walter Stoeckel : Commemoration for Carl Ruge and Robert Meyer. Zbl Gynäkol 74 (1952), 1601-7.
• H.-U. Lau, T. Okagaki: Tribute to Robert Meyer. Int J Gynecol Pathol 12: 98-100 (1993) PMID 8463045 .
• GB Gruber: Robert Meyer (1864-1947). Zentralbl Allg Pathol 93 (1955), 76-8, PMID 14375081 .
• Udo Rudloff, Hans Ludwig: Jewish gynecologists in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century. Arch Gynecol Obstet 272 (2005), 245-60, doi : 10.1007 / s00404-005-0046-6 .
• Eberhard Neumann-Redlin von Meding, Hella Conrad: Doctors under the swastika. The Berlin Medical Society under National Socialism. Berlin: Jaron-Verlag 2013 ISBN 978-3-89773-718-1 .
• Andreas D. Ebert : It doesn't matter who is right, but what is right - Robert Meyer's work at the women's clinics of the Royal Charité (1908–1912) and the Berlin Friedrich Wilhelms University (1912–1939). In: Matthias David, Andreas D. Ebert: History of the Berlin University Women's Clinics: Structures, people and events in and outside the Charité . Walter de Gruyter Verlag, 2009, ISBN 3-11-022373-2 , doi : 10.1515 / 9783110223743.219 ( full text in the Google book search).
• Werner E. Gerabek : Encyclopedia history of medicine . Walter de Gruyter Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 ( full text in the Google book search).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Eberhard Neumann-Redlin von Meding, Hella Conrad: Doctors under the swastika. The Berlin Medical Society under National Socialism. Jaron-Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-89773-718-1
2. ^ J Hist Med Allied Sci (1948) III (2): p. 354 online

Web links

• Erik Moore: A home for Dr. Robert Meyer. University of Minnesota Academic Health Center History Project ( online ) March 15, 2010
• Documents on Robert Meyer's position at the University of Minnesota online (PDF document; 715 kB)
• Robert Meyer on whonamedit.com