Theodor Billroth

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Theodor Billroth, founder of modern abdominal surgery (photograph from 1887)

Christian Albert Theodor Billroth (born April 26, 1829 in Bergen on Rügen ; † February 6, 1894 in Abbazia , today Opatija / Istria ) was a German-Austrian doctor.

He was one of the most important surgeons of the 19th century , whose achievements continue to have an impact today. He was best known for his achievements in the field of gastric surgery (he carried out the first partial stomach removal in 1881 ) and is widely regarded as the founder of modern abdominal surgery as well as a pioneer in larynx surgery , pathological anatomy and bacteriology.

Live and act

Memorial plaque for Theodor Billroth at Domstrasse 22 in Greifswald

Billroth was the son of pastor Karl Theodor Billroth (1800-1834) and his wife Christina ("Christl") Nagel (1808-1851). His grandfather Johann Christian Billroth was the mayor of Greifswald. His maternal grandmother was the singer Sophie Dorothea Willich ; an uncle on his father's side was the theologian Gustav Billroth (1808–1836).

He was born the first of five children. When he was five years old, his father died of tuberculosis, and later siblings too. The family moved to Greifswald , where he completed his school days and passed the school leaving examination in 1848. After that, dissuaded by his mother from his desire to become a musician, he began his studies at the medical faculty of the University of Greifswald . He later moved to the universities of Göttingen , where Wilhelm Baum Billroth was the first surgical teacher, and Berlin ; other of his teachers included Johannes Müller , Moritz Heinrich Romberg , Johann Lukas Schönlein and Ludwig Traube .

After receiving his doctorate in 1852, Billroth went to Vienna for almost a year to attend lectures by Ferdinand von Hebra , Richard Heschl and Johann von Oppolzer . During this time he became a member of the Academic Choral Society Vienna, today's University Choir Barden zu Wien . Before returning to Berlin, Billroth stayed for a short time in Paris to study.

As assistant to Bernhard von Langenbeck, Billroth worked at the Charité between 1853 and 1860 , where he learned the basics of plastic surgery and the construction of surgical instruments. In Langenbeck he could in surgery and pathological anatomy 1856 habilitation . In 1858 Billroth married Christel Michaelis in Berlin, a daughter of the court medic Edgar Michaelis (1807–1848). With her he had three daughters and a son. Through his wife, Billroth was related to the actor and singer Fritz Eunike .

In 1858 he turned down a call for pathological anatomy to Greifswald, but two years later accepted an appointment to the surgical chair in Zurich , where he then wrote his well-known pathological-anatomical work. In Zurich he laid the foundations for “scientific surgery” (later he was called “natural scientist in the surgeon's smock”) and raised his subject to the level at which he later met Ernst von Bergmann , August Bier , Ferdinand Sauerbruch and others could celebrate his great triumphs.

Photo from 1892
Billroth among his former assistants

In 1862 Billroth turned down an offer from the University of Rostock and in 1864 an offer from Heidelberg . From Zurich he moved to Vienna in 1867 and took over the second surgical chair there in 1868 (= II. Surgical University Clinic), which he headed until the end of his life. He turned down the call to Berlin as Langenbeck's successor. His activities in Vienna were interrupted in 1870/71 by the Franco-German War . For the most part, Billroth worked as a surgeon in the hospitals of Weißenburg and Mannheim .

Immediately after the end of the war Billroth returned to Vienna and devoted himself to his calling as a doctor. In addition to his work in the General Hospital in Vienna, he worked in teaching and research at the University of Vienna . The Vienna Medical School found an outstanding representative in Billroth. Theodor Billroth was a founding member of the German Society for Surgery in 1872 .

Billroth's publications not only show his successes, but also - according to his biographer Kern, he was the first of a few surgeons to publish all surgical failures without reservation.

Billroth's skills as a surgeon became internationally known. So in April 1877 he was called in as a surgeon for an intestinal operation on the seriously ill Russian poet Nikolai Alexejewitsch Nekrasow by his doctors. Billroth received the Order of Saint Stanislaus 2nd degree from the Russian government . In December 1881 Billroth amputated General Tschertkow's leg in Saint Petersburg.

A number of milestones in surgery are directly due to Billroth, including the first esophagectomy (removal of the esophagus ) in 1871 and the first laryngectomy (removal of the larynx ) on December 31, 1873 . In 1881, however, Billroth still considered an operation on the heart to be a chimera .

The best known is his - after many failed attempts - his first successful gastric resection (partial removal of the stomach ), which he succeeded on January 29, 1881 in a gastric cancer patient with pyloric carcinoma and which makes him the founder of modern gastrointestinal surgery. It was a distal gastric resection (pyloric resection) with gastroduodenostomy. In 1885 his assistant Viktor von Hacker published another gastric resection procedure developed by Billroth. As a result, the two forms of gastric resection, Billrothresection ( Billroth I and Billroth II ) were named after him. A waterproof bandage bears the name Billroth batiste after him . Billroth's student Adolf Lorenz describes him as a rival of Eduard Albert , who also worked at the Vienna Clinic and also made a lasting impression on Lorenz as a teacher .

Theodor Billroth in the lecture hall, painting by Adalbert Seligmann , 1888/90

On March 21, 1884, in Vienna , Billroth completely removed a kidney with a tumor from the 34-year-old theater poet and lyricist Carl Caro , which had been diagnosed a few months earlier. The patient passed away on September 4, 1884.

In addition to his work as a surgeon, Billroth also conducted research in the field of microbiology . For example, he described spheroidal bacteria in pus preparations, which he understood as "vegetation forms" merging spherical and rod forms of pleomorphic algae, which he called "Coccobacteria septica". However, he did not consider this to be the cause of the infections. In some cultures Billroth found spheroidal bacteria arranged in chains, which he called streptococci . As early as 1874 in Vienna he recognized the bacterial growth inhibiting effect of the fungus Penicillium and can therefore be considered the first to discover penicillina .

Billroth, whose operative success was made possible not least by the introduction of antisepsis , was a sponsor of the hospital and nursing sector. He took care of hospital hygiene, patient transport and, at an early stage, nurses' training, which was previously carried out exclusively on a denominational basis. The establishment of the Rudolfinerhaus in 1882, a hospital with a nursing school , was therefore only logical. In 1883 he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and in 1888 of the Leopoldina Academy of Scholars .

On the occasion of his 25th anniversary as a professor in Vienna, Billroth was honored on October 8, 1892 at a ceremony attended by 80 of his students; he was presented with a 676-page commemorative publication with a total of 30 articles. Billroth's surgical students also included Anton von Eiselsberg and Ferdinand Sauerbruch's teacher, Johann Mikulicz-Radecki .

Honorary grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery

In addition to his great success in surgery, Theodor Billroth was also a talented pianist and violinist who was in close friendship with Johannes Brahms and Eduard Hanslick .

On the question of anti-Semitism , which was increasing in Vienna at the time , Billroth, in his work Teaching and Learning in 1875, took the view that Jews were a sharply defined nation and that a Jew could therefore never become German - a statement later often quoted by anti-Semites. He later changed his stance and in 1891 became an honorary member of the Vienna Anti-Semitism Association, which was founded in 1890 in the German Reich , as the German Association wrote in 1894 in its text Theodor Billroth and the Antisemites a few days after Billroth's death.

Theodor Billroth died at the age of almost 65 on February 6, 1894 in Abbazia (Opatija) and found his final resting place in a grave of honor in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 14 A, number 7).

Honors, commemorations, criticism

Memorial plaque in Kremmen -Staffelde on May 11, 1999
Marble bust in the Langenbeck-Virchow-Haus

The Austrian Society for Surgery writes every year for the best scientific work in the field of clinical and experimental surgery and their frontiers the Theodor Billroth price out.

The building in the 9th district of Vienna, Alsergrund , in which the Society of Doctors in Vienna has its headquarters, is called the Billrothhaus . It awards the Billroth medal to well-known physicians.

Billroth was the driving force behind the establishment and operation of the Vienna private hospital called Rudolfinerhaus in the 19th district, Döbling (protector was Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary ). The street leading past the hospital (tram line 38 to Grinzing ) was renamed Billrothstraße in the year of his death . The secondary school , which has existed here since 1935 and is now called the Billrothgymnasium , is also located on this street .

Streets:

2 shilling coin (1929)

In Kremmen -Staffelde in Brandenburg there is a memorial plaque for Theodor Billroth, who performed his first operation there. The plaque was attached by two American surgeons who had brought the plaque with them from the USA, and the Würzburg surgeon and Billroth biographer Ernst Kern on May 11, 1999 ( Helmut Wolff and the former Washington heart surgeon and publisher as well as Billroth- Biographer Karel B. Absolon, whom Kern had already met in Edinburgh in 1975 and who published the Billroth Seegen letters with Absolon ).

There is a Parkhotel Billroth in Sankt Gilgen am Wolfgangsee (Salzburg) . It stands on the site of the by architect Leopold Theyer planned (1851-1937), completed in 1884/85, 1,905 aborted Villa Bill Roth , had spent in the Theodor Billroth many years his summer, and the original of the today villa garden is maintained.

In Bergen auf Rügen , Theodor Billroth's birthplace, a street was named after him in 1896. The house where he was born at Billrothstrasse 17 was bought by the German Society for Surgery in 1998 and expanded the "Billroth House" into a meeting place with seminar rooms, a scientific library and a cafeteria. The city pays tribute to his musical inclinations with classical house concerts in the "Billroth-Haus".

The establishment of the German Society for Surgery is shown in a larger than life oil painting by Ismaél Gentz (1862-1914) in the Langenbeck-Virchow House (LVH) in Berlin, which today belongs to this society and the Berlin Medical Society (founded in 1860). On the painting there is von Langenbeck with Billroth opposite Victor von Bruns . Billroth is also honored with a marble bust (1892) by Zumbusch , which is in the foyer of the LVH.

After a commission from the City of Vienna classified the naming of Vienna's Billrothstrasse as historically critical in 2013, a report from a historian's commission from the City of Graz followed in 2017. She also assessed the designation critically, because a “German-national-'Aryan' attitude” Billroth can be proven in various publications.

Publications (selection)

  • De natura et causa pulmonum affectionis quae nervo utroque vago dissecto exoritur . Dissertation. University of Berlin, 1852.
  • General surgical pathology and therapy in 50 lectures. Berlin 1863.
  • Historical and critical studies of the transport of the wounded and sick in the field on railways . Vienna 1874.
  • Investigations into the vegetation forms of Coccobacteria septica and the part they play in the development and spread of accidental wound diseases. Reimer, Berlin 1874.
  • Nursing at home and in hospitals. A handbook for families and nurses . Vienna 1881.
  • About the teaching and learning of the medical sciences at the universities of the German nation, along with general remarks about universities . Vienna 1876
  • Investigations into the development of blood vessels, together with observations from the royal surgical university clinic in Berlin . Habilitation. University of Berlin 1856.
  • Who is musical? Gebrüder Paetel, Berlin 1895 (reprint of the new edition from 1896: Wagner, Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-88979-000-3 )

literature

  • Christian Pape: Billroth, Christian Albert Theodor. In: Handbook of Antisemitism . Volume 2/1, 2009, pp. 84f.
  • Wolfgang U. Eckart , Christoph Gradmann (Hrsg.): Doctors lexicon. From antiquity to the present (1st edition Munich 1995) . 3. Edition. Springer, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 3-540-29584-4 , pp. 47 ff .
  • Wolfgang Genschorek: pioneer of surgery. Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach , Theodor Billroth . Hirzel, Leipzig 1982.
  • Wilhelm Hartel, Hans-Jürgen Peiper : The Theodor Billroth birthplace in Bergen on Rügen. Origin - life path - memorial . Wallstein-Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0645-5 .
  • Ernst Kern (Ed.): Theodor Billroth. 1829-1894; Biography based on personal reports. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-541-16531-6 .
  • Hans-Jürgen Peiper: The Langenbeck-Virchow-Haus in the mirror of the history of the German Society for Surgery Einhorn-Presse Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-88756-821-4 .
  • Leopold Schönbauer :  Billroth, Christian Albert Theodor. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 239 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Helmut Wyklicky: Unknown from Theodor Billroth. Documentation in fragments. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-7001-2073-7 .
  • Helmut Wyklicky: Billroth, Theodor. In: Werner E. Gerabek et al. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of medical history. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 179 f.
  • Felicitas Seebacher: "The operated surgeon". Theodor Billroth's German nationalism and academic anti-Semitism. In: Journal of History . 54, 4, 2006, pp. 317-338.
  • Felicitas Seebacher: "The foreign in the 'German' temple of science". Breaks in the scientific culture of the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, mathematical and natural science class. Publications of the Commission for the History of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Medicine. 65). Vienna 2011.
  • Karel Bedrich Absolon: The Grand Master of Surgery Theodor Billroth (1829-1894). German translation and editing by Ernst Kern. Kabel Publ., Rockville 1989, ISBN 0-930329-29-5 . (Original title: Thesurgeon's surgeon (Theodor Billroth, 1829–1894). )

Web links

Commons : Theodor Billroth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ernst Kern: The remote effects of Theodor Billroth up to the present day. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of death on February 6, 1994. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 12, 1994, pp. 287-298.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Benz : Handbook of Antisemitism: Anti-Semitism in Past and Present . tape 2 : Persons A-K . De Gruyter Saur, Berlin / New York 2009, ISBN 978-3-598-24072-0 , pp. 84 .
  3. ↑ Wolfgang U. Eckart , Christoph Gradmann (ed.): Doctors' Lexicon. From antiquity to the present . 3. Edition. Springer, Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 3-540-29584-4 , pp. 47 ff . (1st edition. Munich 1995).
  4. ↑ Ernst Kern : Seeing - Thinking - Acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000, ISBN 3-609-20149-5 , p. 28.
  5. ↑ Hans Rudolf Berndorff : A life for surgery. Obituary for Ferdinand Sauerbruch. In: Ferdinand Sauerbruch: That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; cited: Licensed edition Bertelsmann, Munich 1956, pp. 456–478, here: p. 458.
  6. ↑ Ernst Kern : Seeing - Thinking - Acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000, ISBN 3-609-20149-5 , p. 40.
  7. ↑ Igor Telitschkin: Theodor Billroth (1829-1894) in Russia. In: Würzburg medical history reports. 23, 2004, pp. 385-392.
  8. ↑ Karel Bedrich Absolon: The Surgeon's Surgeon: Theodor Billroth 1829-1894. Coronado Press, Lawrence KS 1987, Volume III, pp. 35, 51, 121 and 140.
  9. ↑ Igor Telitschkin: Theodor Billroth (1829-1894) in Russia. 2004, p. 390 f.
  10. ↑ Christoph Weißer: Heart surgery. 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. 583 f., Here: p. 583.
  11. ↑ Max Raab, Federico Gutiérrez: Overview of the development of gastric replacement after gastrectomy. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 5, 1987, pp. 271-310, here: p. 271.
  12. ↑ Helmut Wyklicky: gastrectomy. 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. 880 f., Here: p. 880.
  13. ↑ Ernst Kern : Seeing - Thinking - Acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000, ISBN 3-609-20149-5 , p. 39.
  14. ↑ Theodor Billroth: Open letter to Dr. L. Wittelshöfer. In: Wiener Medical Wochenschrift. Volume 31, 1881, pp. 161-165.
  15. ↑ Viktor Ritter von Hacker: On casuistry and statistics of gastric resections and gastroenterostomies. In: Negotiations of the German Society for Surgery. Volume 14, No. 2, Berlin 1885, pp. 62-71.
  16. ↑ Adolf Lorenz: I was allowed to help. My life and work. (Translated and edited by Lorenz from My Life and Work. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York) L. Staackmann Verlag, Leipzig 1936; 2nd edition ibid 1937, p. 97 f.
  17. ↑ Obituary. In: Provinzial-Zeitung. Breslau, September 6, 1884.
  18. ↑ Ernst Kern : Real and supposed progress in surgery. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 9, 1991, pp. 417-429, here: p. 418.
  19. ↑ Ernst Kern: Seeing - Thinking - Acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000, ISBN 3-609-20149-5 , p. 93.
  20. ↑ Ernst Kern: Seeing - Thinking - Acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. 2000, p. 40.
  21. ^ Articles on surgery. Festschrift dedicated to Theodor Billroth by his grateful students to celebrate the fiftieth semester of his academic work in Vienna. Stuttgart 1892 ( online at Internet Archive ).
  22. ^ Art. Billroth anniversary. In: New Free Press. Evening paper. No. 10102 of October 8, 1892, p. 2 ( online at ANNO - AustriaN Newspapers Online ).
  23. ↑ Hans Rudolf Berndorff: A life for surgery. Obituary for Ferdinand Sauerbruch. In: Ferdinand Sauerbruch: That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; used: license edition Bertelsmann, Munich 1956, pp. 456–478, here: p. 459.
  24. ↑ Historians' report on Vienna's street names . Oliver Rathkolb , Peter Autengruber , Birgit Nemec, Florian Wenninger: Final research project report on Vienna's street names since 1860 as “Political Places of Remembrance” Ed .: Association for the Scientific Review of Contemporary History, Vienna 2013, p. 305 f., On the website of the Vienna City Administration.
  25. ^ Messages from the Association for Defense against Anti-Semitism. Volume 4, No. 8, February 25, 1894, p. 61. (periodika.digitale-sammlungen.de)
  26. ↑ Bill Roth medal in Muenzzentrum accessed on 28 April 2011th
  27. ↑ Billroth Medal holder , accessed on April 28, 2011.
  28. ^ Website of the grammar school
  29. ↑ Ernst Kern: Seeing - Thinking - Acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000, ISBN 3-609-20149-5 , pp. 125 f., 325 and 331.
  30. ↑ Plate 21. Villa Billroth, built by L. Architect Theyer (…). In:  Architektonische Rundschau , Volume 1885, No. 3/1885 (Volume I), p. 39, center left (text); Plate 21 (illustration) . (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / art.
  31. ↑ Final Report of the Expert Commission for street names of Graz , Graz 2017, p. 3
personal data
SURNAME Billroth, Theodor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Billroth, Christian Albert Theodor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Mountains on Rügen
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 1894
Place of death Abbazia