Werner Forßmann

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Werner Forßmann, before 1957

Werner Theodor Otto Forßmann (born August 29, 1904 in Berlin ; † June 1, 1979 in Schopfheim ) was a German doctor and Nobel Prize winner . In 1929 he carried out the first published right heart catheterization in humans, documented by means of an X-ray . A few years later he showed that contrast media can be used safely in the human heart . Especially in the years after the Second World War , André Frédéric Cournand and other medical professionals took up his work; they form the basis of modern heart diagnostics .

After his work and publications in cardiology had met with criticism and little interest, Werner Forßmann devoted himself to surgery and urology . In 1932 he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) . During the Second World War he served as a medical officer in the Wehrmacht and was taken prisoner at the end of the war. After the war and the expiry of his professional ban by the Allies , he worked with his wife as a rural surgeon and then as a urologist in Bad Kreuznach .

In recognition of his work, which was not yet noticed by the professional world in 1929, he received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1956 together with André Frédéric Cournand and Dickinson Woodruff Richards for their discoveries on cardiac catheterization and pathological changes in the circulatory system . From 1958 Forßmann worked as chief surgeon at the Evangelical Hospital in Düsseldorf , where he worked until his retirement in 1969.

life and work

Early years and education

Werner Forßmann was born on August 29, 1904 in Berlin as the only child of the lawyer Julius Forßmann and his wife Emmy, b. Hindenberg, born. His father's family originally came from Finland, his mother's family was Prussian. The parents, and especially his father, attached great importance to a good education. He graduated from the humanistic Askanische Gymnasium in Tempelhof .

The father, who was a soldier in the First World War on the Eastern Front in 1914 , died on September 16, 1916 in Swistelniki , Galicia , when his son was twelve years old. Forßmann then grew up with his mother and grandmother Helene Hindenberg, who raised him according to Prussian ideals. He was also heavily influenced by his uncle Walter Hindenberg, who ran a country doctor's practice in Altstrelitz and whom he often visited as a child and as a student.

In 1922 he began studying medicine at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, today's Humboldt University . During this time Forßmann was a member of the student union Akademische Liedertafel Berlin . He studied with the anatomist Rudolf Fick and the pathologist Otto Lubarsch , among others . He passed his state examination in 1928, after which he went to the University Hospital , the former Moabit Hospital, for his clinical training . Here he worked under the chief physician and professor Georg Klemperer and was taught by Moritz Borchardt , Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner , Ernst Haase , Karl Frik , Karl Bonhoeffer and Louis Lewin , among others . In 1929 he obtained his doctorate in Berlin. med. His dissertation with the title About the effect of liver feeding on the red blood count and the cholesterol level in the serum of healthy people was based on the successful treatment of pernicious anemia by the administration of vitamin B 12 in the form of liver extracts . Forßmann and his colleagues examined the potential blood changes in healthy people due to the intake of liver extract (liver feeding). For this purpose they drank a liter of a broth concentrated from pork liver every day.

After his clinical training, Klemperer initially offered Forßmann a volunteer position, but gave the position to someone else who was interested. That is why Forßmann first went to a private gynecological clinic in Spandau as a surgeon after completing his doctorate , where he was primarily entrusted with septic diseases, childbed fever and clearing up miscarriages . Then there was the diathermy treatment of chronic vaginal inflammation, which he described as the dullest afternoon activity he could imagine. After just three months, he was dissatisfied and looked for a new job. In 1929, through personal relationships, he began working as an assistant doctor in the Auguste Victoria Clinic, today's Werner Forßmann Hospital , in Eberswalde . There he worked under the surgeon and clinic director Richard Schneider. Schneider entrusted him with numerous examinations and operations right from the start and trained him extensively in surgery.

Probing the right ventricle

Auguste Chauveau with assistants during a cardiac catheter examination of a horse

Forßmann had already dealt with heart diagnostics during his student days. According to his own statements, his later self-experiment was based on the work of Claude Bernard , Auguste Chauveau and Étienne-Jules Marey on domestic animals, especially dogs and horses. Bernard had published a woodcut in the textbook Leçons de Physiologie Operatoire . He showed the catheterization of a dog lying on its back, which had been fed a tube through an opened jugular vein into the heart so that the pressure inside the heart could be measured. Forßmann applied this method of investigation to humans, choosing the more accessible arm instead of the neck. He examined the possibility of catheterization on cadavers and found through an autopsy that he could penetrate a tube from the arm into the heart.

X-ray of the cardiac catheter examination by Werner Forßmann, 1929

In the spring of 1929, Forßmann, as a surgical assistant doctor, carried out a self-experiment on the first cardiac catheterization after Richard Schneider had refused such patient tests. The exact course of the experiment is unclear, as Forßmann published different versions of the process:

  • According to the description in his autobiography , contrary to Schneider's prohibition, he persuaded a surgical nurse to prepare the medical equipment for a blood collection and a prepared urinary catheter made of vulcanized rubber . He then inserted the rubber tube into his right arm vein himself.
  • In his publication in 1929, however, he wrote that the puncture of the vein was carried out in a preliminary test of the vein by a colleague, meaning Peter Romeis. In this preliminary experiment, he inserted a well-oiled rubber tube about 35 centimeters into the vein, as shown, before his colleague broke off the experiment for fear of possible dangers. After this description, he then carried out the experiment on his own about a week later.

He used the access via the right cephalic vein , a large blood vein on the outside of the upper arm . He pushed the catheter 65 centimeters into the right ventricle and guided it through the humerus vein into the subclavian vein and from there through the brachiocephalic vein and the superior vena cava (superior vena cava) into the right atrium . He documented this with an X-ray , for which (according to the description in the autobiography) he went with the inserted catheter into the X-ray cellar of the clinic and with the help of an X-ray nurse took a picture of the tube in the right ventricle.

On November 5th, the Klinische Wochenschrift published his work On Probing the Right Heart . However - similar to his lecture in April 1931 at the conference of the German Society for Surgery - it found hardly any resonance in the professional world. Forßmann presented catheterization primarily as an alternative to intracardiac injections , which were often used in acute treatment at the time and which were very risky due to possible damage to the heart and the surrounding vessels , in order to ensure rapid local drug treatment. In addition to his self-experiment, he also described the successful clinical application in the treatment of a patient with purulent peritonitis , in which he used the right heart catheter for medication. The catheter stayed in the heart of the patient for 6.5 hours, but the patient died of her illness after a short improvement. During the autopsy he actually found the catheter in the heart and in the inferior vena cava ; he could not find any injuries in the veins caused by the catheter. According to his autobiography, the dying patient, whose peritonitis resulted from a miscarriage , was treated only after he tested the catheter on himself. He subsequently used this experiment as confirmation of his self-experiment.

For the rest of their careers, Forßmann and Schneider made contact with several respected doctors. Among them were Wilhelm His , who was famous primarily as a cardiologist for his discovery of the transmission of stimuli in the heart ( His bundle ), and the well-known surgeon August Bier . However, both were about to retire and refused.

Ferdinand Sauerbruch (1932)

Finally, Forßmann was initially hired unpaid by Ferdinand Sauerbruch , the head of the Charité , and placed under Rudolf Nissen . The article about the self-experiment appeared in the Klinische Wochenschrift shortly after the appointment ; At the same time, a Berlin daily newspaper described the experiment as a sensation. Forßmann was then confronted with allegations of plagiarism by Ernst Unger and Fritz Bleichröder . A few years before Forßmann, you had investigated the application of active substances through a catheter into vessels near the heart. Unger put a catheter on Bleichröder. In an experiment in which Bleichröder complained of chest pain, they probably had catheterized the heart as well, but this was not documented. In this connection Unger wrote a letter to Ferdinand Sauerbruch. Sauerbruch, who knew nothing about the publication, then dismissed Forßmann again. Forßmann quoted the head of the clinic at the time, Sauerbruch, as saying: "With such tricks you get your habilitation in a circus and not at a decent German clinic." After this release Forßmann returned to Eberswalde, where his former position had already become vacant.

Unger wrote two more letters, one to Forßmann and one to Viktor Salle, the chief editor of the Klinische Wochenschrift . In it he called for an immediate rectification. In close consultation with Salle Forßmann published a short article with the title Addendum , in which he wrote: “As Prof. E. Unger informed me, Bleichröder, Unger and Löb had the same experiment as I did in 1912 in a work on“ Intraartielle Therapy ”published. (...) He (Unger) even worked with Dr. Bleichroder, as he concluded from the length of the catheter and a sharp pain, had reached the right heart. The authors failed to publish this last fact at the time (...). ”In his Nobel Prize speech in 1956, Forßmann also highlighted the work of Unger, Bleichröder and Löb.

Contrast representation of the heart

In Eberswalde, Forßmann again assisted Schneider in his operations. He mainly took on gynecological interventions, where he also represented the head of a private gynecological clinic in Frankfurt an der Oder . Although Forßmann was comparatively inexperienced in this area, Schneider sent him to Frankfurt as a representative, where he performed, among other things, minor abdominal operations, operated on a uterine cancer and performed a complex caesarean section .

Willi Felix (around 1960)

After some time, Forßmann began looking for a new physiological field of work to deal with the contrast display of the heart. The representation of the stomach and intestines had already developed a great deal. Forßmann assumed that this kind of representation of the heart could be significantly improved by angiocardiography . Thanks to Willi Felix , whom he met at the Charité, he was able to work first with domestic rabbits and later with dogs in the Neukölln Municipal Hospital . He administered a contrast medium into the heart through a cardiac catheter through the jugular vein. Then he was able to take usable x-rays and prove that this application of contrast medium was possible and apparently harmless to animals. As a next step, he carried out another self-experiment by injecting a contrast medium through a cardiac catheter. With the X-ray technology available to him, however, he could not produce good images.

Forßmann worked with Felix on a publication for the Münchner Medizinische Wochenschrift . He registered his work as a lecture at the German Society for Surgery for the annual congress in 1931; he was accepted for a four-minute presentation. Then Sauerbruch offered him another position at his institute, which Forßmann accepted. He stayed, first as an unpaid volunteer, at the Charité until the beginning of 1932, working at the same time as a surgeon and substitute doctor. During this time Forßmann got to know the later Nobel Prize winner Gerhard Domagk , who developed the sulfonamide Prontosil for the Bayer plant and collected fresh tumor material for chemical processing at the Charité. At the end of his time at the Charité Forßmann was transferred to the local polyclinic to Otto Stahl (director of the surgical department of the Auguste Viktoria Hospital in Berlin), an early and influential member of the NSDAP.

Career as a urologist during the National Socialist era

After Forßmann had left the Charité, he worked on Sauerbruch's advice from July 31, 1932 as an assistant doctor at the Mainz Municipal Hospital in surgery under Willi Jehn . Here he met his future wife Elisabeth Engel, whom he married on December 7, 1933. After the " seizure of power ", the hospital was placed under National Socialist management following a dispute between the head of internal medicine and an assistant doctor active in the NSDAP and the SA . Since married couples were not allowed to work at the same hospital, Forßmann left Mainz and looked for a new job in Berlin. There Karl Heusch , who had previously also worked at Sauerbruch, set up the first German urological department at a hospital and offered Forßmann a position as senior physician in the urological department at the Rudolf Virchow Hospital . Through Heusch Forßmann came into contact with his teacher Otto Ringleb , who, despite Sauerbruch's resistance at the Charité, advanced urology significantly and, at the time of National Socialism, was promoted to SS-Oberführer as a member of the Schutzstaffel until 1944 .

When Jewish doctors were excluded, numerous medical societies collapsed after the National Socialists came to power , including the Berlin Urological Society and the German Urological Society. According to the Ulm University , around every fourth urologist in Germany in 1933 was of Jewish origin. Heusch and Ringleb rebuilt these societies in their interest and with the participation of numerous board members from the higher ranks of the NSDAP and the SS. In 1936 they organized the first specialist congress of the German Urological Society. Forßmann gave a lecture there on the status of urology and the successful application of electroresection in the treatment of prostatic hyperplasia . In the same year he successfully applied for a position as senior physician with Albert Fromme at the municipal hospital in Dresden-Friedrichstadt , which was then the largest center for surgery in Germany. He stayed there until 1937. In this hospital eugenic sterilizations were carried out, for which Forßmann was not directly responsible, but which he had to approve. According to his own account, he was able to “avoid” sterilization during his time in Dresden, since this was only allowed to be performed by specialists in surgery and he was a specialist in urology.

After 1937 he worked at Moabit Hospital, now known as the Robert Koch Hospital, also as a senior surgeon. As senior physician and deputy head of surgery at the university hospital, Forßmann was introduced to Karl Gebhardt , Heinrich Himmler's personal physician, by Kurt Strauss , head of surgery and SS leader . Gebhardt promised Forßmann support for his work, but this refused. A year later Forßmann, according to his own account, came into confrontation with Strauss because, contrary to a ban after the November pogroms of 1938 , he admitted injured Jews to the hospital and treated them together with the so-called " Aryan Germans".

As a surgeon and medical officer in World War II

Forßmann's activities during the Nazi era and the Second World War are almost only available from himself in his autobiography. He became a member of the NSDAP as early as 1932 and thus before the takeover of power, and later of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the National Socialist German Medical Association . The reasons for joining the NSDAP are unclear. He himself stated that the driving force could have been the search for a father figure. At the same time, the ideology promised better career opportunities for him and an economically stronger Germany. Forßmann signed up for the Wehrmacht in 1939 and took part in several exercises. During the Second World War he was used as a medical officer for surgery.

After Forßmann had already participated in several exercises before, he was drafted into the Stettin hospital on August 11, 1939 with numerous other reserve medical officers for an exercise . From there he came to Königsberg shortly before the beginning of the war with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 . The medical officers were distributed across East Prussia . Forßmann took over the hospital in Johannisburg (today Pisz), to which numerous injured people from the battle of Łomża came. After the attack on Poland, he worked in the reserve hospital in Bromberg (today Bydgoszcz) before he was transferred to the newly established medical replacement department VI in Riesenburg (today Prabuty) and later as a trainer in Kremerbruch in Western Pomerania (today Kramarzyny).

Before the German invasion of Norway and Denmark on April 9, 1940, Forßmann was put on standby near Danzig and at the end of April was ordered to work as a medical officer in Oslo . From there he went to Åndalsnes to the medical company 1/163 of the 163rd Infantry Division . In Norway he was involved in health and injured care in Dovre , Ålesund and later in the Oslo area and in Mosjøen . After his return Forßmann went back to surgery in Moabit for a short time, which Erwin Gohrbandt was now in charge of .

In February 1941, the medical company 1/123 was relocated to the Warthebruch . He took part in the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22nd as part of his unit . During the German-Soviet War , he was deployed in early 1942, among other things, as a field doctor and officer in the 123rd Infantry Division in the Battle of Demyansk ; he commanded a main dressing station there . In October 1942 he was able to return to Berlin and worked again in the Robert Koch Hospital. From there he went to the municipal hospital in Potsdam as head of the clinic in April 1943 . Here, on May 1, 1943, he treated the Chief of Staff of the SA Viktor Lutze and his family, who had suffered a serious car accident. Lutze and his daughter died from their injuries. After his work ended, Forßmann came to the Brandenburg Reserve Hospital for a few weeks, which was housed in the Brandenburg-Görden Sanatorium. As a medical officer, Forßmann was also ordered to observe and monitor executions in the Brandenburg-Görden prison , where he was given the task of determining the time of death.

In the last years of the war, Forßmann, as a medical officer and surgeon, converted the hospital in the Neuruppin sanatorium as part of the Brandt campaign from a hospital for lightly ill patients into the central department of the military district for the seriously injured. Here he worked until the hospital was closed shortly after the city was largely destroyed and taken over by the Red Army in 1945. Shortly before the end of the war, Forßmann fled to Wittenberge with the help of a marching order he had drawn up himself . After he crossed the Elbe , US soldiers took him prisoner. He remained in US captivity until October 1945. Then he returned to his family, who now lived in Wies in the Black Forest .

Postwar and Nobel Prize

Forßmann bridged the time of denazification , during which, as a former member of the NSDAP, he was banned from working for several years in his wife's private practice; he helped her as a country surgeon. 1948 classified him a denazification proceedings of the French occupying forces because of his activities as a follower. In 1950 he began working as a specialist in urology at the Diakonie-Anstalten in Bad Kreuznach (today the kreuznacher diakonie foundation ). He ran the practice with 18 beds together with his wife, who was recognized as a specialist in 1952 and was able to officially represent him. In 1953 Forßmann gave a lecture on transurethral resection at the annual conference of the German Society for Urology in Aachen . In 1953 he was given the consultative treatment of urogenital tuberculosis in Josef Kastert's tuberculosis practice in Bad Dürkheim .

Forßmann did not deal with cardiology since he focused on surgery and urology; he had also finished scientific research in the field. As a result, he did not notice the development of cardiac catheterization or the work of French-born André Frédéric Cournand and other colleagues on modern cardiac diagnostics, which had been building on his work since 1941. It wasn't until the early 1950s that he had the opportunity to look at a children's clinic in Basel that was using modern cardiac catheterization. In 1951, the English doctor John McMichael invited him to London so that he could work on a film about cardiac catheterization. On the trip he met the Nobel Prize for Medicine Henry Hallett Dale . In 1951 he also met André Cournand when he was visiting Fritz Eichholtz in Heidelberg. As a result, Forßmann made friends with Hugo Wilhelm Knipping in Cologne and visited him frequently, including for the laying of the foundation stone for the nuclear research facility in Jülich (KFA, now Forschungszentrum Jülich ).

Award certificate of the Nobel Prize to Werner Forßmann in 1956

In 1954 Otto Goetze , the President of the German Society for Surgery , asked Forßmann to give a lecture on the history of cardiac catheterization at the annual conference. Forßmann agreed. In the same year Forßmann received the Leibniz Medal of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin for his services to therapeutic heart surgery.

As the first surgeon after the Bernese Theodor Kocher in 1909, Forßmann received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1956 with André Frédéric Cournand and Dickinson Woodruff Richards for their discoveries about cardiac catheterization and the pathological changes in the circulatory system . After the announcement of the Nobel Prize, Forßmann, who until then had not achieved any academic achievements with the exception of his dissertation, became honorary professor of surgery at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz at the pressure of several colleagues and against the wishes of Dean Blücher . The winners received the Nobel Prize on December 10, 1956 in Stockholm . The eulogy held Göran Liljestrand , a member of the Nobel Committee, before the winners meet accepted the certificates and medals. On December 11th, Forßmann gave his Nobel Lecture on the historical development of cardiac catheterization, while Cournand took on the theoretical part of the method and Richards took on the clinical presentation.

The time after the Nobel Prize

Werner Forßmann (right) and Franz Meyers (Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, left) with Federal President Theodor Heuss , 1959

In 1958 Forßmann went to the Evangelical Hospital in Düsseldorf as chief surgeon . The hospital's board of trustees , headed by Detlef Herting, hired him to succeed the surgeon Alfred Beck. According to his own account, however, the employment relationship began very coldly, as Beck did not want to vacate his position and Forßmann had the image of a country doctor with no surgical experience. After a short time there was a public dispute between Forßmann and the board of trustees as well as within the board of trustees. Forßmann was dismissed after six months at the end of the probationary period, but was to continue to be employed until the end of 1958. A major problem was a "memorandum" Forßmann sent to the Board of Trustees in which he named the clinic's grievances. Added to this was the refusal of the Düsseldorf doctors, attributed to his reputation, to admit patients to the clinic under Forßmann's direction. The board of trustees demanded a qualification test, which the Düsseldorf medical association refused with reference to Forßmann's experience and certificates. In 1959, an arbitration procedure was carried out by the State Medical Association under the direction of the Cologne doctor Kaspar Roos. In the same year, the Federal President Theodor Heuss Forßmann awarded the Federal Cross of Merit . The arbitration procedure ended in a settlement and confirmation of Forßmann's office. He remained chief surgeon until his retirement (1969) and at the same time promoted the expansion of radiology as an independent department under the direction of Heinz Hornig and later the establishment of a separate department for anesthesiology under Lena Adelheid Funke.

Forßmann then became honorary professor at the Universities of Córdoba (1961) and Düsseldorf (1964) and, in 1962, a board member of the German Society for Surgery. He was also a member of the American College of Chest Physicians and an honorary member of the Swedish Society for Cardiology and the German Society for Urology . In 1967 he became an honorary member of the National Academy of Sciences of India.

Especially after receiving the Nobel Prize, Forßmann expressed himself publicly and presented his positions on euthanasia , the death penalty , euthanasia and organ transplantation , among other things . His attitudes were primarily due to his work as a doctor during National Socialism. From 1957 to 1978 he was a regular guest at the Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau , which he attended 16 times. On January 3, 1968, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung printed a clear statement by Forßmann against the transplantation of unpaired organs as a reaction to the first heart transplant by the South African doctor Christiaan Barnard . In his opinion, the heart and liver in particular should not be eligible for transplants. In the 1960s and 1970s, the discussion about the reintroduction of the death penalty in Germany arose mainly due to the activities of terrorist organizations such as the Red Army Fraction (RAF). Forßmann strictly rejected the death penalty.

Retirement and Personal

After his retirement in 1969, Forßmann wrote his autobiography , which appeared in 1972 under the title "Selbstversuch". He spent his retirement in Wies-Wambach . He and his wife had six children: Klaus (born 1934), Knut (born 1936), Jörg (born 1938), Wolf-Georg (born 1939), Bernd (born 1940) and Renate (born 1943). With the exception of Renate, all children were born in Berlin; she was born in Schopfheim. His son Bernd Forßmann is a physicist and one of the developers of the extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy used in practical urology at Dornier System . The anatomist Wolf-Georg Forßmann worked, among other things, as a professor at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg . The daughter Renate Forßmann-Falck lives in Richmond , Virginia, USA, and is a psychiatrist.

Werner Forßmann died on June 1, 1979 as a result of a myocardial infarction in the municipal hospital in Schopfheim .

Scientific review of Forßmann's biography

Forßmann's life and work apart from the self-experiment on right heart catheterization, which led to the Nobel Prize, have been little investigated and documented by independent sources; a scientific processing of the biography exists only in parts. Short biographies usually only describe the process of self-experiment and the award of the Nobel Prize, while they do not go into large parts of further life. He himself presents his life in detail in his autobiography, so that some periods of time and especially his activity during the time of National Socialism and during the Second World War can be proven almost exclusively through this book.

Since this is a self-portrayal with a personal view of the events, statements from this work should be viewed critically. The Canadian historian Michael H. Kater examined several autobiographical accounts of doctors who were active in Germany during the Nazi era and identified critical omissions and trivializations of their own activities. In Forßmann in particular, Kater criticized omissions and the tendency to emphasize the actions and positions of other National Socialists in his environment, such as Kurt Strauss, and thereby downplay his own pro-NSDAP stance. The circumstances of his entry into the party, which took place in 1932 and thus before Adolf Hitler's seizure of power , are not presented in the autobiography; membership in the National Socialist Medical Association is not mentioned.

Importance of the right heart catheter for medical research

Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach carried out left heart catheterization in humans as early as 1834; Lithograph by Joseph Kriehuber , 1840

The first work on catheterization of the (left) heart was published by Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach as early as 1834. He tried to stimulate the heart's activity in a dying cholera patient by mechanically stimulating the inner wall of the heart. Rudolf Virchow mentioned this in his lectures in 1848/49 . Werner Forßmann stated that he only found out about this attempt in 1971.

Although the catheterization of the right heart and Forßmann's self-experiment received little attention at the time of its implementation and meant a significant loss of his reputation as a cardiologist for Forßmann, this experiment was his most important contribution to medical research. Forßmann was the first person to document how he guided a long and flexible catheter to the heart and survived this attempt undamaged. His self-experiment and its documentation formed the basis for numerous developments in cardiac catheter examinations and the angiography of the pulmonary circulation system based on it . In 1930 the physician Hans Baumann published an article on the usability of the various methods for determining minute volume , in which he used the puncture of the heart to determine minute volume. The cardiologist Arrigo Montanari from Florence, who carried out experiments to catheterize the heart on animals and corpses around 1928, confirmed Forßmann's merit in 1930. He was the first physician to perform and describe heart catheterization on living people. Montanari said that the radiological documentation chosen by Forßmann was useful and necessary when performing this technique. The results of the Czech physician Otto Klein, who practiced in Prague , were published only a few months after his self-experiment . Using the method published by Forßmann, he determined the cardiac blood pressure and the oxygen concentration in the heart blood in lung patients using cardiac catheters. Other right heart catheterization applications were later reported from Spain, Cuba and Argentina.

Modern right heart catheter

In particular, the work of the two Nobel Prize winners André Frédéric Cournand and Dickinson Woodruff Richards, who were awarded Forßmann, on measuring cardiac output with the aid of the right heart catheter was based on the previously almost forgotten experiments of Forßmann, which they encountered while researching their research at Bellevue Hospital in New York were. Cournand and Richards studied cardiovascular ailments and used right heart catheterization to study various diseases. They use the method, for example, to investigate traumatic shock, the effects of heart drugs and heart diseases, as well as their treatment and diagnosis. They improved catheterization and explored its possible applications first in experiments on dogs and chimpanzees and later on humans. At the end of the 1930s, they were able to identify and treat complicated and previously unknown heart defects.

The method came into clinical practice around 1940. It spread very quickly worldwide. Together with the imaging angiocardiography , the catheter examination allowed a comprehensive diagnosis of the heart and, based on this, modern cardiology .

In 1949, Cournand presented right heart catheterization for the detection of congenital heart defects. Later he was the first doctor who succeeded in catheterization of the lungs with a catheter which he pushed through the right heart and the pulmonary artery into the lungs. Later developments of the cardiac catheter led in the 1970s to the balloon catheter and the balloon dilatation that this made possible to expand pathologically narrowed blood vessels. The cardiologist Andreas Roland Grüntzig performed it successfully for the first time in 1977.

Honors

Werner Forßmann received the highest honor in 1956, the Nobel Prize for Medicine together with André Frédéric Cournand and Dickinson Woodruff Richards. There were also other honors:

  • Leibniz Medal of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin (1954)
  • Award of honorary citizenship of the city of Bad Kreuznach (1957)
  • Large Federal Cross of Merit with Shoulder Ribbon and Star (1964)
  • Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques (1971)
  • Honorary doctorate from the medical faculty of the Humboldt University (1977)
  • On the 50th anniversary of the Nobel Prize in 2006, Deutsche Post issued a 90-cent special stamp
  • The Barnim Clinic at Forßmann's place of work in Eberswalde bears the name Werner Forßmann Hospital (1991)
  • Werner Forßmann Prize as a foundation prize from the Ruhr University Bochum
  • Honorary grave in Wies in the Black Forest

Publications

Werner Forßmann mainly worked as a practical surgeon and urologist. He did not belong to any scientific institution for most of his life. The number of Forßmann's publications is small. His early publications on right heart catheterization and publications relating to the Nobel Prize are of particular importance.

Scientific publications (selection)

  • About the effect of liver feeding on the red blood count and the cholesterol level in the serum of healthy people. Medical dissertation, Berlin 1929.
  • On probing the right heart , in: Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift, November 5, 1929.
  • The pain numbing when interfering with the urinary organs. Journal of Urology 29, 1936; Pp. 316-28
  • Clinic and technology of electrical resection. Journal of Urology 31, 1937; Pp. 153-70
  • Nobel Lecture: The Role of Heart Catheterization and Angiocardiography in the Development of Modern Medicine. , published in: Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942–1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1964. Retrieved from nobelprize.org on February 16, 2014.

Biographical publications

  • Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-7700-0313-6 . (also published in licensed edition for the Deutsche Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972)
  • Advance into the heart. Droste, Düsseldorf 1972.
  • Werner Forßmann's autobiography on the pages of the Nobel Foundation for the award ceremony in 1956 (English). Retrieved from nobelprize.org on February 16, 2014; published in: Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942–1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1964.

literature

  • Werner Forssmann: The probing of the right heart. Clin. Wochenschr. 8 (1929): 2085-2087; translated by J.Schaefer in WASeed: The introduction of cardiac catheterization. In: Gilbert Thompson (Ed.): Nobel Prizes that Changed Medicine. London 2012, pp. 69-87.
  • Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-7700-0313-6 . (also published in licensed edition for the Deutsche Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972)
  • Diana Berry: Pioneers in cardiology. Werner Forssmann - sowing the seeds for selective cardiac catheterization procedures in the twentieth century. In: European Heart Journal 30 (11), 2009, pp. 1296-1297. ( Full text )
  • Renate Forssmann-Falck: Werner Forssmann: A Pioneer of Cardiology. In: The American Journal of Cardiology 79, March 1, 1997. ( full text )
  • HW Heiss: Werner Forssmann: A German Problem with the Nobel Prize. Clinical Cardiology 15 (7), 1992, pp. 547-549. ( Full text )
  • Gustavo Martínez Mier, Luis Horacio Toledo-Pereyra: Werner Theodor Otto Forssmann: Cirujano, Cateterista y Premio Nobel Cirujano General 22 (3), 2000, pp. 257-263. ( Full text )
  • Forßmann, Werner Theodor Otto In: Bernhard Kupfer: Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners. Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-491-72451-1 , p. 133.
  • Ingrid Graubner: The way to the heart (PDF; 129 kB) Article in Humboldt , the university newspaper of the Humboldt University, edition 9 - 2003/2004, year 48 - July 29, 2004, p. 11.
  • Forßmann: Probe in the heart. Der Spiegel 44/1956; Html text and full PDF.
  • Manfred Stürzbecher : Forßmann, Werner Theodor Otto. 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. 416 f.
  • MC Truss, CG Stief, U. Jonas: Werner Forssmann. Surgeon, urologist and Nobel Prize winner. In: World Journal of Urology. 17, 1999, pp. 184-186.

Web links

Commons : Werner Forßmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition of the German Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 9.
  2. ↑ a b c d Forßmann, Werner Theodor Otto In: Bernhard Kupfer: Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners. Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-491-72451-1 , p. 221.
  3. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 22.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Renate Forssmann-Falck: Werner Forssmann: A Pioneer of Cardiology. The American Journal of Cardiology 79, March 1, 1997. ( full text )
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Forßmann, Werner Theodor Otto, Prof. Dr. med. Dr. hc on the website of the city of Bad Kreuznach. Retrieved February 18, 2014.
  6. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 39.
  7. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 20 and p. 70–71.
  8. ↑ 100 years of the special houses association of academic-musical connections. 1867-1967. Festschrift of the special houses association. Aachen 1967, p. 105.
  9. ↑ SV-Handbuch, edition 3/2002, p. 376.
  10. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 57.
  11. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 48–49.
  12. ↑ a b c d e f g h i autobiography by Werner Forßmann on the pages of the Nobel Foundation for the award ceremony in 1956 (English). Retrieved from nobelprize.org on February 16, 2014; published in: Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942–1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1964.
  13. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 75–80
  14. ↑ Werner Forßmann: About the effect of liver feeding on the red blood count and the cholesterol level in the serum of healthy people. Medical dissertation, Berlin 1929. DNB 571918085
  15. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 80.
  16. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 90–91.
  17. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 92–93.
  18. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 96.
  19. ↑ a b c d Werner Forßmann: Nobel Lecture: The Role of Heart Catheterization and Angiocardiography in the Development of Modern Medicine. , published in: Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942–1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1964. Retrieved from nobelprize.org on February 16, 2014.
  20. ^ A b Diana Berry: Pioneers in cardiology. Werner Forssmann - sowing the seeds for selective cardiac catheterization procedures in the twentieth century. European Heart Journal 30 (11), 2009, pp. 1296-1297. ( Full text )
  21. ↑ a b Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 102-104.
  22. ↑ a b c d e f Werner Forßmann: The probing of the right heart. Klinische Wochenschrift 8 (45), 1929, pp. 2085-2087.
  23. ↑ Eckart Roloff : Advancing into the lifelines. Examinations with the cardiac catheter. On the presentation of the Nobel Prize for Medicine to Werner Forßmann 50 years ago. In: Rheinischer Merkur No. 49 of December 7, 2006, p. 31.
  24. ^ A b Ramona Braun: Voyaging in the Vein: Medical Experimentation with Heart Catheters in the Twentieth Century. Nucleus 26, 2011, pp. 132-158.
  25. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 104-105.
  26. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 106.
  27. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 98.
  28. ^ HA Neumann: Werner Forßmann and the cardiac catheter. 2009, pp. 4-6. ( available online ( memento of March 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ); accessed November 30, 2015)
  29. ↑ a b Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 108.
  30. ↑ a b Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 106.
  31. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Addendum. Klinische Wochenschrift 8 (49), 1929, p. 2285.
  32. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 120–123
  33. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 124–128.
  34. ↑ Werner Forßmann: The method of contrasting the central circulatory organs. Münchner Medizinische Wochenschrift 78, 1931, pp. 489–492.
  35. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 130-131.
  36. ↑ Walter Marle (Ed.): Lexicon of the entire therapy with diagnostic information. 2 volumes, 4th revised edition. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin / Vienna 1935 (list of employees) .
  37. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 146–149.
  38. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 150.
  39. ^ HW Heiss: Werner Forssmann: A German Problem with the Nobel Prize. Clinical Cardiology 15 (7), 1992, pp. 547-549. ( Full text )
  40. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 163–169.
  41. ↑ a b c d Michael C. Truss, Christian G. Stief, Udo Jonas: Werner Forssmann: surgeon, urologist, and Nobel Prize winner. In: World Journal of Urology 17: pp. 184-186.
  42. ^ Ernst Klee: Das Personenlexikon zum Third Reich , Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 498
  43. ↑ a b Urology under National Socialism. ( Memento from December 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Description of the project at Ulm University; accessed on November 30, 2015.
  44. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 185.
  45. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 215.
  46. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 235 ff.
  47. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 239.
  48. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 241.
  49. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 247.
  50. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, pp. 262–263.
  51. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 265.
  52. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 281 ff.
  53. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 290 ff.
  54. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 294 f.
  55. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 302.
  56. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 311 ff.
  57. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 339 ff.
  58. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 343 ff.
  59. ↑ a b Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 352 f.
  60. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 382 f.
  61. ^ André Cournand: Nobel Lecture: Control of the Pulmonary Circulation in Man with Some Remarks on Methodology. , published in: Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942–1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1964. Retrieved from nobelprize.org on August 10, 2014.
  62. ^ A b Dickinson W. Richards: Nobel Lecture: The Contributions of Right Heart Catheterization to Physiology and Medicine, with Some Observations on the Physiopathology of Pulmonary Heart Disease. , published in: Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942–1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam 1964. Retrieved from nobelprize.org on August 10, 2014.
  63. ↑ Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 394 ff.
  64. ↑ a b Werner Forßmann: Self-experiment. Memories of a surgeon. Deutscher Bücherbund Stuttgart 1972, licensed edition by Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, p. 405 ff.
  65. ^ Forßmann: The discharge. Der Spiegel, July 8, 1956.
  66. ↑ Gustavo Martínez Mier, Luis Horacio Toledo-Pereyra: Werner Theodor Otto Forssmann: Cirujano, Cateterista y Premio Nobel Cirujano General 22 (3), 2000, pp. 257-263. ( Full text )
  67. ↑ Werner Forßmann at the Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau , entry in the Mediatheque of the Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, accessed on January 19, 2014.
  68. ↑ Smashed. ( Memento from August 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Press release of the German Society for Urology eV on 25 years of extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, September 4, 2005; Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  69. ↑ Team play in work and life. University of Heidelberg October 14, 2013; Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  70. ↑ Michael H. Kater : Doctors Under Hitler. UNC Press Books, 1990; Pp. 136-137. ( Google Books ).
  71. ^ Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach: Physiological-surgical observations in cholera sufferers . 1834.
  72. ^ Robert Rössle: Rudolf Virchow's lectures in Würzburg . Virchow's Archive for Pathological Anatomy and Physiology and for Clinical Medicine, 1937, 300, pp. 4-30.
  73. ↑ Hans Baumann: About the usability of the various methods for determining minute volume . In: Zeitschrift für Kreisforschung 22, 1930, pp. 611–615.
  74. ↑ Arrigo Montanari: For probing the vascular system. Klinische Wochenschrift 9 (11), 1930, p. 501.
  75. ↑ Otto Klein : To determine the circulatory minute volume in humans according to Fick's principle. (Collection of mixed venous blood by means of cardiac probing). Munich Medical Wochenschrift 77, 1930, pp. 1311-1312.
  76. ↑ Shlomo Stern: A note on the history of cardiology: Dr. Otto Klein, 1881 to 1968. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 45 (3), 2005, pp. 446-447. doi : 10.1016 / j.jacc.2004.09.071
  77. ^ Richards, Dickinson Woodruff In: Bernhard Kupfer: Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners. Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-491-72451-1 , pp. 261-262.
  78. ^ A b Cournand, André Frédéric In: Bernhard Kupfer: Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners. Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-491-72451-1 , pp. 206-207.
This article was added to the list of excellent articles in this version on August 8, 2014 .
personal data
SURNAME Forßmann, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Forßmann, Werner Otto Theodor (full name); Forssmann, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physician and Nobel Prize winner
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 1979
Place of death Schopfheim