Theodor Christian Eulner

Theodor Christian Eulner (born July 31, 1765 in Trendelburg ; † March 8, 1801 in Qeqertarsuaq ) was a German doctor .

Life

Theodor Christian Eulner was the son of the land road commissioner and bridge engineer Carl August Eulner (1728–1804) and his wife Maria Carolina Stahl (1733–1804). Eulner began an apprenticeship as a pharmacist in Marburg in 1781 , which he completed in 1785. In 1786 he studied surgery in Hamburg and in 1788 went into service in the Danish-Norwegian army, where he served as a company surgeon in the cranberry war against Sweden . From 1791 to 1793 he studied at the Surgical Academy in Copenhagen .

The North Greenland inspector Børge Johan Schultz decided in 1791 to employ a doctor in Greenland who should be in the trade. In 1793 Eulner was chosen for this position, making him the first commercial doctor in Greenland. The first year he lived in Ilulissat , then in the colonial capital of Qeqertarsuaq. However, he was not only responsible for the colony locations, but for the entire colony of North Greenland , which at that time stretched over 300 km on the west coast of Greenland. So he had to travel a lot to treat the Greenlanders and at the same time he was to a certain extent also a pharmacist , since he had to make all the medicine himself. In 1800 an epidemic of smallpox broke out with its center in the colonial district of Holsteinsborg , the northernmost colonial district of southern Greenland , but it also affected his colony, especially in northern Greenland's southernmost colonial district of Egedesminde . Even with vaccinations, he could not contain the disease with great effort . Probably because of his powerlessness and personal problems, he became depressed and shot himself in 1801 at the age of 35.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biography in Biografisk Leksikon for Grønland
2. ↑ Biography in Dansk Biografisk Leksikon