Wilhelm August Roth

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Wilhelm August Roth

Wilhelm August Roth (born June 19, 1833 in Lübben , Niederlausitz , † June 12, 1892 in Dresden ) was a German hygienist and military doctor .

Life

Until 1870

Wilhelm August Roth was born on June 19, 1833 in Lübben in Niederlausitz. After leaving school, he began studying in Berlin at the medical and surgical Friedrich Wilhelm Institute for military education . As early as April 1859, he was a teacher at the War Academy in Berlin in the Prussian service. Until March 31, 1870 he was an assistant doctor in the 5th Hussar Regiment. He then became general physician first class in the Royal Army and corps physician of the XII. Royal Saxon Army Corps. The Medical Directorate and the Medical Corps of the Saxon Army were subordinate to him.

After 1870

In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 he headed the Saxon medical service as a corps doctor and also signed for a short time for the medical security of the IX. Prussian and XII. Saxon Army Corps and with the formation of the Maas Army under the command of the Saxon Crown Prince Albert as an Army General Doctor. Through his initiative, the "Military Medical Society of Dresden" came into being at the end of April 1870, and in 1874 it was renamed the "Sanitäts-Officiers-Gesellschaft zu Dresden". He was also widely known as the author of military medical writings. The three-volume “Handbook of Military Health Care”, which he published together with Rudolf Lex from 1872 to 1877, deserves special mention. This work found great recognition not only in Germany but also abroad, especially in France , as a basis for training and scientific work. In the third volume of the “Handbook”, Roth presented all the requirements for the physical performance of soldiers, to which he attached great importance in his scientific work and practical investigations. In doing so, he created the foundations or precursors of today's military performance medicine and occupational hygiene.

He was also the founder of the “Annual Reports on the Achievements and Advances in the Field of the Military Medical Service”, which are exemplary in terms of their structure and information content to this day. He also introduced the “Publications from the Royal Saxon Military Medical Service”. In addition, his articles appeared in the "German Military Medical Journal", in the magazines "Military Doctor" and "Field Doctor" and in the Russian "Military Medical Journal". With Roth began a very precise organization of the advanced training of military doctors in the Saxon medical corps. After the war of 1870/71 he made particular efforts to provide effective instruction and qualification for medical officers, and in 1870 he introduced advanced training courses for military doctors in Saxony . These courses set an example for all other German states and were later imitated in Prussia and Bavaria . Together with the Saxon Queen Carola they pushed the military medical training according to modern principles and later founded the "Military Medical Society of Dresden". As an example for Europe , Roth also implemented the military hygiene and military medical principles in the civil sector.

After 1880

W. A. ​​Roth memorial, Graf Stauffenberg barracks , Dresden- Albertstadt
Tomb in the Inner Neustädter Friedhof

He paid great attention to training not only Saxon but also foreign military doctors who completed a kind of medical internship in the Saxon army. Particularly noteworthy is the Japanese military doctor Ogai Mori , who implemented the structure of the Saxon military medical system in the Japanese army after returning to his homeland . Roth's experience also flowed into the construction of Dresden's Albertstadt . The military buildings in the north of the city were unique in Europe at that time, also because of the hygienically well thought-out equipment with bathing facilities proposed by Roth (for the first time in barracks). Thanks to his efforts, the garrison hospital in Marienallee (built 1876–1879) was equipped with a special chemical and hygienic examination laboratory.

In addition to his military medical work, he was also active in the civil sector. As early as 1871, the State Medical College, the highest medical authority in the Kingdom of Saxony, submitted a proposal to the Ministry of the Interior to introduce hygiene as a subject at the Dresden Polytechnic . On the basis of an application to the Ministry of the Interior for the purpose of "introducing a lecture on health care", Roth received a corresponding teaching obligation in June 1874 to give regular lectures on health care, industrial and domestic hygiene at the polytechnic. With this appointment, an essential prerequisite for the targeted education of the next generation of technicians in hygienic thinking was created. During his work he prepared the ground for a hygienic institute and a hygiene professorship at the Royal Saxon Technical University (realized 1892-1894, the latter by Friedrich Renk, hygienist from Munich) with a small collection of demonstration objects. From 1874 to 1880 he worked as a part-time lecturer in health care. In 1880 he was appointed associate professor and in 1881 full honorary professor at the Dresden Polytechnic. This made him the first lecturer for hygiene at this facility. Roth was appointed major general in 1890 .

He was a member of the Landesmedizinalkollegium and temporarily its vice-president, long-time member and since 1872 second chairman of the Geography Association in Dresden and for many years a member of the Tonkünstlerverein. At the age of 55 he learned the Russian language. He was also interested in the German Colonial Association . A year before his death, he took over the management of the collections and templates for public health care at the Technical University of Dresden. As early as 1883, d. H. before Karl August Lingner , Roth submitted the proposal to the meeting of the estates to set up a hygiene museum in Dresden . Suggestions from him also contributed to the establishment of the first military convalescent home for convalescents in 1894 and thus the first such institution in the area of ​​the army administration of the German Reich in Glasewaldt's rest near Dresden.

Roth remained unmarried and died after a short, serious illness as a result of suffering from asthma . He was buried with the highest military honors in the Inner Neustädter Friedhof in Dresden. In his honor, a memorial was inaugurated in the former garrison hospital on Marienallee on his 60th birthday in 1893 . The bronze medallion was created by the Dresden sculptor Heinrich Epler . The inscription reads:

The general doctor u. Corps doctor,
Dr W. Roth
Das Königlich Saechsische Sanitaets-,
Corps - Established in 1893.

Publications

Books

  • Guilelmus Augustus Roth: De condylomatibus acuminatis. Schlesinger, Berlin 1855, also: Dissertation, University of Berlin, 1855
  • Wilhelm Roth: The service conditions of the assistant doctors and sub-doctors in the Royal Prussian Army. Published by August Hirschwald, Berlin 1859 ( digitized version )
  • Wilhelm Roth: Military medical studies. Vossische Buchhandlung (Strikker), Berlin 1864 ( digitized )
  • Wilhelm Roth: Military medical studies. New episode. Vossische Buchhandlung (Strikker), Berlin 1868 ( digitized )
  • Wilhelm Roth: The tent camp on the Lockstädter Heide in Holstein. A military-medical sketch compared with the camp at Châlons (1866). Zernin, Darmstadt and Leipzig 1866 ( digitized version )
  • Wilhelm Roth: Outline of the physiological anatomy for gym teacher educational institutions. Verlag der Vossische Buchhandlung, Berlin 1866 ( digitized version ); 2nd edition, 1872; 3rd edition, 1879 ( digitized version ); 4th edition, 1885; 5th edition edited by Friedrich Haenel, 1901
  • Wilhelm Roth: Official and voluntary nursing care. Lecture given at the Military Medical Society in Berlin on March 2, 1867. Verlag von August Hirschwald, Berlin 1867 ( digitized version )
  • Wilhelm Roth and Rudolf Lex (eds.): Handbook of the military health care. 3 volumes, Verlag von August Hirschwald, Berlin 1872, 1875 and 1877 ( volume 1 , volume 2 , volume 3 , review )
  • N. Pirogow (Author); Wilhelm Roth and Anton Schmidt (translator): The war medical system and private help on the battlefield in Bulgaria and in the rear of the operating army 1877-1878. Publishing house of FCW Vogel, Leipzig 1882 ( digitized version )

Essays

  • Wilhelm Roth: The tasks of the army health service. Lecture given in the military society in Berlin on December 3, 1868. In: German quarterly journal for public health care. Volume 1, pp. 43-59
  • Wilhelm Roth: The health service on the English expedition to Abyssinia. A contribution to army health care. In: Military weekly paper. Supplement 7, Ernst Siegfried Mittler and Son, Berlin 1868, pp. 216-268
  • W. Roth: The military medical training courses for the XII. (Royal Saxon) Army Corps in the winter of 1874/75. In: German Military Medical Journal. Volume 4, 1875, Issue 9, pp. 531-537 ( digitized version )
  • Roth: About the treatment of hygiene as a subject. In: Report of the committee on the sixth meeting of the German Association for Public Health Care in Dresden on September 6-10, 1878. Printed and published by Friedrich Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig 1879, pp. 107-125
  • W. Roth: The advanced training means for the medical corps. In: Publications from the Royal Saxon Military Medical Service. Verlag von August Hirschwald, Berlin 1879, pp. 1-24
  • Roth: How can advances in heating and ventilation be made and how can they best be used in the interests of health care? In: Report of the committee on the eighth assembly of the “German Association for Public Health Care” in association with the “Association for Health Technology ” in Hamburg from September 13 to 15, 1880. Printed and published by Friedrich Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig 1881, p . 103 -133
  • C. Flügge: About the promotion of hygienic instruction. In: Report of the Committee on the Eleventh Assembly of the German Association for Public Health Care in Hanover from September 15 to 17, 1884. Printed and published by Friedrich Vieweg and Son, Braunschweig 1885, pp. 7-27, especially pp. 21-22

literature

Web links

Commons : Wilhelm August Roth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Rolf Rehe: Roth, Wilhelm August. In: Saxon Biography.
  2. ^ Gerd Becker: OSH history , Army officer school .
  3. ↑ State Directorate Saxony. History. Dresden office. Stauffenbergallee 2 - part of Albertstadt. , January 25, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Roth, Wilhelm August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German hygienist and military doctor
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1833
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübben , Lower Lusatia
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 1892
Place of death Dresden