Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch

Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch

The department heads of the General Polyclinic in Vienna around 1885.
From left, seated:
Alois Monti , Johann Schnitzler , Robert Ultzmann , Jakob Hock , Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch ;
Standing from left:
August Leopold von Reuss , Emil Stoffella , Wilhelm Winternitz , Leopold Oser , Anton von Frisch , Hans von Hebra , Ludwig Fürth , Moriz Benedikt , Viktor Urbantschitsch , Max Herz , Anton Wölfler , Ludwig Bandl

Samuel Siegfried Karl Ritter von Basch (born September 9, 1837 in Prague , † April 25, 1905 in Vienna ) was an Austrian doctor, pathologist and physiologist of Jewish origin.

family

He was the son of the businessman Philipp Basch and married to Adele Frankl. There are two daughters from the marriage.

education and profession

He completed his high school and the first three semesters of medical studies in his native city of Prague. From the winter semester of 1857 to the summer semester of 1859, he continued his training in Vienna. While still a student, he showed an interest in an academic career and wanted to become a pathological anatomist. In 1857 Basch found a job in the laboratory of the physiologist Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke , where he dealt with questions of comparative anatomy and histology as well as pathological histology. Just a year later his first work appeared on the chylopoietic and uropoietic system of the Blatta orientalis . After receiving his doctorate on July 15, 1862, he worked as an assistant and secondary doctor in various departments of the Vienna General Hospital until 1865 (with Eduard Jäger von Jaxtthal , Leopold von Dittel , Ludwig Türck and Alexander Kolisko ).

Personal physician to Emperor Maximilian of Mexico

Friedrich Semeleder (1832-1901) was of Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria (Maximilian of Mexico, 1832-1867), the designated emperor of Mexico , as a personal physician determined and should accompany these overseas. Before that, Semeleder wanted to familiarize himself with microscopy technology, and Basch was recommended as a teacher. According to the ideas of the emperor, Semeleder should set up medical chairs in Mexico , the chair of pathological anatomy he offered on this occasion to Basch, and on February 10, 1866, he took over the post of commander of the military hospital in Puebla . Here he mainly treated dysentery diseases. After Semeleder had given up his position as the imperial personal physician in September 1866, Basch moved into this position. In addition, he became a chronicler of the events up to the capture of the Habsburgs after the siege of Queretaro in May 1867 and shared six weeks' imprisonment with his emperor. Maximilian of Mexico was shot dead on June 19, 1867 by soldiers of Benito Juarez . In November, Basch returned to Europe on the frigate Novara with the emperor's body and informed Franz Josef I about the fate of his brother and the end of the Mexican adventure. Basch was rewarded with a knighthood and a pension from the emperor's estate.

Back in Vienna, Basch alternately carried out experimental studies in the Vienna laboratories of Brücke and Salomon Stricker , practiced the technique of kymography , designed and built the necessary equipment and instruments. From 1869 he worked regularly as a spa doctor in Marienbad in the summer season in order to obtain the necessary funds for his scientific research.

In 1870 he completed his habilitation as a private lecturer in experimental pathology and from 1873 he was introduced to the latest experimental techniques several times at the Physiological Institute in Leipzig by Carl Ludwig . In 1878 Basch received the extraordinary professorship. Basch's attempts to get his own laboratory in Vienna found little support at first. Disappointed in Vienna, he went to Berlin and found a friendly welcome there at Hugo Kronecker's physiological institute . There he developed the first usable blood pressure monitor in 1880 . In 1881 Basch was admitted to the post of head of an internal department at the polyclinic of the Vienna General Hospital. Finally his laboratory received an annual grant of 200 guilders and he became a full professor in 1900. In 1904 he gave up the medical practice in Marienbad and devoted himself only to work in the laboratory.

In 1955 the Baschgasse in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) was named after him.

power

In 1869, Basch published an anatomical-clinical treatise on dysentery , which contained so much that was new that Rudolf Virchow felt compelled to refer to Basch as a “co-founder of bacteriology ”.

Basch was particularly successful in the field of experimental pathology in animal experiments . His work focused on circulatory physiology as well as pulse and blood pressure measurement . He also studied the effects of nicotine and the physiology and pathology of bowel movements. Basch was a pioneer and creator of circulatory physiology: He founded the method of clinical blood pressure measurement and also used it to examine normal and pathological circulatory conditions. In animal experiments, Basch determined the pressure in the left atrium, a step towards clarifying the function of the small circulation , dealt with the work of the heart (1877) and also made a contribution to the question of cardiac dyspnea (1888) and introduced the terms efficiency of the heart or .Breathing work as well as hyperpnea in the circulation theory.

Basch designed a pad manometer that could be combined with a fixation device in order to avoid errors if the instrument was placed incorrectly on the radial artery. In 1883, Basch presented a portable metal sphygmometer intended for ambulatory blood pressure measurement, which, based on the aneroid barometer principle, used a corrugated metal capsule to which the pressure coming from the water-filled pad was transferred. This construction arose from the need to have a reliable instrument for assessing the circulatory function available at the bedside. In 1900, Basch described a device for measuring capillary pressure.

Fonts

Essays

• Anatomical and clinical studies of dysentery . In: Virchows Archive for Pathological Anatomy and Physiology , Vol. 45 (1869) p. 204, ISSN  0376-0081 .
• About measuring blood pressure in humans . In: Journal of Clinical Medicine , vol. 2 (1880), p. 79, ISSN  0372-9192 .
• An improved sphygmo- and cardiograph . In: Journal of Clinical Medicine , Vol. 2 (1880), p. 654, ISSN  0372-9192 .
• A metal sphygmomanometer . In: Wiener Medical Wochenschrift , vol. 33 (1883), p. 673, ISSN  0254-7945 .
• The sphygmomanometer and its use in practice . In: Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift , Vol. 24 (1887), pp. 179, 206, 224, 244, 987.
• Capillary manometer . In: Wiener Klinische Rundschau , vol. 14 (1900), ISSN  1010-9307 .

Monographs

• General physiology and pathology of the circulatory system . Hölder Verlag, Vienna 1892.
• About heart disease in atherosclerosis . Springer, Berlin 1900.
• Memories from Mexico. History of the last months of the empire. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1868.

literature

• Artur Biedl : Samuel von Basch (1837–1905). In: Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift , vol. 18 (1905), p. 498, ISSN  0043-5325 .
• M. Grossmann: Basch, Samuel Siegfried, knight of . In: Anton Bettelheim (Hrsg.): Biographisches Jahrbuch und Deutscher Nekrolog , Vol. 10 (1907), p. 222 (former title: Biographische Blätter ).
• William H. Lewis: The Evolution of Clinical Sphygmomanometry. In: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine / 2. Series , Vol. 17 (1941), p. 871, ISSN  0028-7091 .
• B. Juhn: Prof. Dr. Samuel Ritter von Basch the founder of clinical blood pressure measurement. In: CIBA Symposium , Vol. 3 (1955/56), ISSN  0374-0625 .
• Solomon Robert Kagan: Jewish Medicine. Medico-Historical Press, Boston Mass. 1952, p. 298.
• Karl Schadelbauer:  Basch, Siegfried Carl Ritter von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 617 ( digitized version ).
• Helmut Wyklicky: Austrian doctors around Maximilian of Mexico. In: Österreichische Ärztezeitung , Vol. 22 (1967), p. 10, ISSN  0029-8786 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch in the catalog of the German National Library
• D. Angetter:  Basch, Samuel . In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 . 2nd revised edition (online only).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In 1879 he left Judaism. Anna L. Staudacher: "... announces the departure from the Mosaic faith". 18,000 exits from Judaism in Vienna, 1868–1914: names - sources - dates . Peter Lang, Frankfurt / M. u. a. 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-55832-4 , p. 39.