Central Institute for Diabetes
The Central Institute for Diabetes "Gerhardt Katsch" was the central control facility of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) for the medical treatment of diabetics, experimental and clinical research on diabetes mellitus , the advanced training of doctors in the field of diabetology and the organization and coordination of care of diabetics at other hospitals throughout the GDR. It emerged from a diabetic home that had existed in Garz on the island of Rügen since 1930 , and its headquarters were in Karlsburg near Greifswald in 1947was relocated. The institute existed until the end of 1990 and was directly subordinate to the Ministry of Health of the GDR government in terms of supervision and financing .
At the end of the 1980s, with over 600 employees, almost 300 beds and around 40,000 patients per year, it was the world's largest facility for research and treatment of diabetes mellitus. With regard to its position in the scientific structures of the GDR, the institute was similar to the central institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR , even if it did not belong to the academy's research community. It was named after the diabetologist Gerhardt Katsch , who worked as an internist at the University of Greifswald, founded the institute and headed it until his death in 1961. The institute's activities in the field of clinical care for diabetics as well as diabetes research have been continued since 1990 in part by various successor institutions still located in Karlsburg.
History until 1989
Structural and building development
The origins of the institute go back to the Diabetic Home Arndt Foundation, which was founded in 1930 in Garz on the island of Rügen by Gerhardt Katsch and Heinrich Laag took part in the church . At the end of 1938 it was taken over by the University of Greifswald and the Provincial Association for Inner Mission withdrew from the board. After the end of the Second World War, the location was relocated to the village of Karlsburg near Greifswald and operations resumed on May 2, 1947 in the local castle with 15 beds and a small laboratory. For this purpose, the state of Mecklenburg left the property to a newly established state foundation called Diabetikerheim Garz / Rügen and Karlsburg - an institute for the research and treatment of diabetes . In addition to the state of Mecklenburg, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD), the Mecklenburg Social Insurance Institute and the University of Greifswald were also involved in financing the further expansion .
On October 12, 1950, the facility, initially focused on clinical and social medical care of diabetics, was converted into an institution under public law with the name Diabetikerheim Garz und Karlsburg - an institution for the research and treatment of diabetes . The institute thus received its function as part of the health system of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). On August 2, 1952, the newly built House A and the converted and expanded former forester's house as House B were handed over, both of which were primarily equipped with laboratories for research, work and living rooms as well as archive and library rooms. In addition, on this occasion it was renamed the Institute for Diabetes Research and Treatment . With the completion of the ward building with 250 beds in 1954, the establishment of the institute was largely completed. At that time, the castle was home to the maternity ward established in 1952.
After the establishment of the institute, new buildings were expanded several times, creating an extensive campus around Karlsburger Schloss . As a branch of the institute, there was a school home from November 1955, initially in Sellin , and from 1958 in Putbus on the island of Rügen, for long-term and possibly permanent care of diabetic children. A so-called “central rehabilitation holiday camp” with appropriate supervision was carried out at both locations. In 1960, a farm building with a kitchen, dining room, laundry and administrative offices was completed in Karlsburg, which was replaced in 1988 by another new building that was also used after 1990. From 1976 the branch of the institute, which had remained in Garz until then, was relocated to Karlsburg as Clinic II, where a new children's clinic was built by 1978. Clinic III for Gynecology and Obstetrics was established in 1977 after the maternity ward had moved from the castle to the ward building built in 1954 in 1967.
Tasks and activities
The primary task of the institute was the outpatient and inpatient medical care of diabetics in the three clinics that were established over time. The focus of the activities on site was in particular the care of acute emergencies such as the diabetic coma , the treatment of patients with serious problems such as an unstable course of diabetes, and the provision of special treatment services. In addition to obstetrics for diabetic mothers, this included the hemodialysis station for diabetes patients with renal insufficiency , which existed from 1968 and was the first special facility of its kind in Europe Care of pregnant diabetics. From 1960 to 1989, the institute managed the Central Diabetes Register of the GDR , which was the only one of its kind in the world as a central register with comprehensive recording of clinical data for all diabetics in a country.
Other centers that collaborated with the institute in the field of clinical care for diabetics included the university clinics in Leipzig , Halle , Dresden , Greifswald and Rostock . From 1960 onwards, a comprehensive network of so-called diabetic care centers , which worked closely with the Karlsburg Institute, was established at district level to provide local dispensary care for patients. The training of the employees of these facilities and the training of diabetics were other important tasks of the institute. In addition to the central rehabilitation holiday camp on the island of Rügen, there were ten other holiday camps in the GDR for diabetic children and young people, each of which could care for up to 800 children.
In the area of diabetes research, the institute was involved in the development of the sulfonylureas and biguanides used as oral antidiabetic agents as well as in the elucidation of their mechanisms of action. From 1970 there was a significant expansion of the activities in basic research. The focus was on investigations into immunological processes in type 1 diabetes, which mainly begins in childhood, as well as studies on its individual prognosis , prevention and therapy using islet cell transplantation . Another research topic was the development of an insulin pump as well as biosensors and the associated device technology for measuring blood sugar with the aim of developing an artificial beta cell . A department with 19 beds was set up in 1971 for clinical research .
In 1972 the institute was appointed the central facility in the GDR for the treatment of diabetics and research on diabetes mellitus, and it was renamed the Central Institute for Diabetes "Gerhardt Katsch" . From 1976 the institute was the coordinating institution for endocrine diseases for the entire area of the states of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid (Comecon) and from August 1986 also the WHO Collaborating Center for Diabetes of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Directors
Gerhard Mohnike was the senior physician in charge of the establishment of the new facility in Karlsburg after the end of the Second World War , initially as a branch of the diabetic home founded in Garz auf Rügen in 1930. Gerhard Mohnike was the senior physician in charge of the Garzer Heim after completing his studies would have. Gerhardt Katsch , who has been director of the facility in Garz since it was founded, took over management of the facility when the headquarters were moved from Garz to Karlsburg. He remained director of the institute until his death on March 7, 1961.
After the death of its founder, the institute was renamed the “Gerhardt Katsch” Institute for Diabetes, and Katsch's successor was Gerhard Mohnike. The close connection between experimental and clinical research with the treatment and care of diabetic patients, which was characteristic of the institute's concept in the later years, can be traced back to him.
After Mohnike, who himself had been a diabetic for many years, died on March 8, 1966 at the age of 48, Hans-Georg Lippmann initially took over the management as acting director. In 1967 Horst Bibergeil became director of the facility and remained so until 1990. During this time, the international orientation and cooperation of the institute was strengthened, with institute members staying abroad in the USA , Sweden and Great Britain .
Development from 1990
Structure and balance sheet 1989/1990
At the turn of the year 1989/1990, the clinical part of the institute consisted of Clinic I for adult diabetics, Clinic II for diabetic children and adolescents (with the Putbus boarding school) and Clinic III for gynecology and obstetrics. The existing number of 287 beds at that time was comparable to the status of the surrounding district hospitals in Anklam and Wolgast , which served the general health care of the population, and was around a fifth of the number of beds in the entire clinic of the neighboring University of Greifswald. In addition, there were research departments for experimental biochemistry, pathobiochemistry, pathophysiology, cell physiology, experimental immunology, radioimmunology, laboratory animal science, clinical chemistry, clinical research, biomedical engineering, computing and cybernetics as well as information and documentation. In 1989/1990 around 630 people were employed in the various sub-areas, including around 100 doctors, scientists and engineers.
By 1989/1990 around 40,000 patients came to Karlsburg for treatment, of which around 3,800 to 4,000 in 1988 and 1989, with a total of around 200,000 stays. At the end of the 1980s, it was considered the world's largest facility for research and treatment of diabetes mellitus. One of the particular successes of diabetic care in Karlsburg was, for example, the fact that the prevalence of blindness among diabetics in the GDR was strikingly low at 0.39 percent in an international comparison. Between 1952 and 1989, around 3,750 children were born in the Clinic for Gynecology and Obstetrics. The perinatal mortality of children of diabetic mothers, which had been around 50 percent before the Second World War and had already fallen to around ten percent in Karlsburg by the end of the 1950s, was 1.4 percent at the end of the 1980s.
The institute's staff published around 2,550 scientific publications and gave more than 3,000 lectures at scientific congresses . Around 100 doctors and scientists received their doctorate or habilitation as part of their work at the institute . The demographic structure of Karlsburg was largely shaped by the institute, in which around 70 percent of the village's working population worked.
Dissolution and successor institutions
After Horst Bibergeil retired in 1990, Uwe Fischer took over the management of the institute. In the same year, the clinical part as a specialist hospital for diabetes and metabolic diseases "Gerhardt Katsch" was outsourced and placed under the Ministry of Social Affairs of the State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . Since January 1st, 1994 the clinic has belonged to the private clinic group Dr. Guth from Hamburg . The Klinikum Karlsburg has since been the focus cardiac surgery and cardiology expands and acts after extensive construction and renovation work, including a new children's hospital today as Heart and Diabetes Center of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as well as an academic teaching hospital of the University of Greifswald.
The former research area of the institute was subjected to an evaluation by the Science Council in the spring of 1991 , which issued a statement on July 5, 1991 initially with integration into the University of Greifswald and, after three to five years, with the joint federal and state funding of the Blue List recommended. The research area was then initially attached to the Medical Faculty of the University of Greifswald as the Institute for Diabetes “Gerhardt Katsch” . 40 scientists from the institute were funded as part of the scientist integration program . However, it was not later included in the Blue List, partly because the Diabetes Research Institute in Düsseldorf , now the German Diabetes Center , was already a similar institution on the Blue List. Instead, four years later, part of the institute was spun off from the university as the "Gerhardt Katsch" institute for diabetes in the legal form of a registered association . Since then, this facility has been based in the former House A of the research area of the Central Institute and, as a state-financed, non-university research facility, focuses on applied diabetes research.
The area of basic research on diabetes mellitus remained in the form of the Institute for Pathophysiology, newly founded on January 1, 1997 at the University of Greifswald. Siegfried Schmidt , who, as a long-time manager of the Pathobiochemistry Division, took over the role of acting director in 1994, kept this position even after the restructuring. Since the institute was founded, however, the number of staff has declined significantly due to the retirement of working group leaders due to age, the expiry of fixed-term contracts and staff transfers to other institutes. Since the beginning of 2006, the Institute for Pathophysiology has stopped researching diabetes mellitus.
In 1998, the new building of the former House C, which was planned in GDR times, was completed and has since been the joint laboratory building of the Institute for Pathophysiology and the Institute for Physiology of the University, which was moved from Greifswald to Karlsburg. The main research areas of both institutes today include the areas of hormonal, neuronal and renal mechanisms of the cardiovascular system and blood pressure regulation (Institute for Physiology) and, following the appointment of Heinrich Brinkmeier from Ulm University as the new director in 2002, diagnosis and mechanisms of neurological and neuromuscular diseases ( Institute for Pathophysiology).
The premises of the former house B and the castle are only partially used, mainly as offices for some of the scientists working in the institutes. There are also some facilities in the castle that are available to all institutions on campus, such as a specialist library and lecture halls.
literature
- Peter Wulfert: Karlsburg - A village and its institute . Karlsburg 1990.
- Peter Wulfert (Red.): The Karlsburger Institute for Diabetes “Gerhardt Katsch” of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University Greifswald. 1992–1996 - A balance sheet . Institute for Diabetes Karlsburg, Karlsburg 1996.
- Waldemar Bruns, Ruth Menzel, Günther Panzram, Konrad Seige, German Diabetes Society (ed.): The development of diabetology in eastern Germany from 1945 until reunification . Wecom, Hildesheim 2004, ISBN 3-936453-31-4 .
- Historical considerations on diabetes mellitus: Diabetic care in eastern Germany from the end of World War II to reunification. In: Diabetes - but not alone. Published by the Brandenburg Regional Association of the German Diabetic Association, 2003, pp. 13-16
Web links
- Website of the Institute for Diabetes "Gerhardt Katsch", Karlsburg
- History of the Institute for Pathophysiology (Karlsburg) ( Memento from June 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Medical Faculty of the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald
- Diabetes patients in the GDR 1945–1990 , report by Steffi Dörries on diabetesgate.de, October 21, 2005
Individual evidence
- ↑ All historical information on the development up to 1990 comes from the publication by Peter Wulfert, Karlsburg 1990 mentioned in the bibliography
- ↑ Werner Klän: The Protestant Church of Pomerania in Republic and Dictatorship: History and Design of a Prussian Church Province 1914-1945. Cologne; Weimar; Vienna: Böhlau 1995 (Zugl .: Münster (Westphalia), Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1993) ISBN 3-412-04195-5 , pp. 126 and 530
- ^ Ulrich Meyer, Andreas Schuhmann, Christoph Friedrich: History of oral antidiabetics: chance and targeted development . In: Pharmacy in our time . 31 (3) / 2002. Verlag Wiley-VCH, pp. 242-250, ISSN 0048-3664
- ↑ Ariane Retzar, Christoph Friedrich: Between Restriction and Renaissance: History of the Biguanide. In: Pharmakon - Medicines in Science and Practice . 1 (3) / 2013. Govi-Verlag, pp. 204-212, ISSN 2195-2175
- ^ All information on the main research areas according to Peter Wulfert, Karlsburg 1990, p. 69
- ↑ WHO Collaborating Centers Global Database: Central Institute for Diabetes Research & Treatment "Gerhardt Katsch" (last accessed on July 7, 2013)
- ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Archive of the hospital building of the XX. Century of the Technical University of Berlin: Central Institute for Diabetes "Gerhard Katsch" (last accessed on July 7, 2013)
- ↑ Peter Wulfert, Karlsburg 1990, p. 82
- ↑ Peter Wulfert, Karlsburg 1990, p. 78
- ^ Michael Berger: Gerhardt Katsch. May 14, 1887 to March 7, 1961. In: German Medical Weekly. 112 (33) / 1987. Georg-Thieme-Verlag, pp. 1271-1273, ISSN 0012-0472
- ↑ KP Ratzmann, K. Gorr, H. Schneider: Prevalence of diabetes-related blindness. A population study of 70,203 diabetics. In: Diabetes and Metabolism. 3/1994. Pp. 261-264
- ↑ S. Stiete: The neonatal morbidity of newborns of diabetic mothers as a function of the management of the maternal metabolic control during pregnancy - a cohort comparison. Dissertation at the Medical Faculty of the University of Greifswald, Greifswald 1994, pp. 3–7
- ↑ Peter Wulfert, Karlsburg 1990, p. 83
- ↑ Peter Wulfert, Karlsburg 1990, p. 79
- ↑ All information on the development from 1990 to 1996 comes from the publication by Peter Wulfert, Karlsburg 1996 mentioned in the bibliography
- ↑ The information on the development after 1996 is based on the website of the Institute for Pathophysiology at the University of Greifswald, sub-pages "History of the Institute for Pathophysiology 1997-2003" and "Research at the Institute for Pathophysiology" (see web links)
Coordinates: 53 ° 58 ′ 14 ″ N , 13 ° 36 ′ 36 ″ E