3w - 54. Österreichischer Chirurgenkongress

Geschichte der Chirurgie in Österreich
first who perceived the relationship between the hyperfunctioning parathyroids and diseased
bones called Ostitis fibrosa generalisata. This was Felix Mandl, the first who stopped this disease
by removal of a parathyroid adenoma, which was a worldwide sensation.
Together with his pupil and successor Egon Ranzi, Eiselsberg started with neurosurgery too. In
the year 1911 they published their experiences with 208 operations in the brain and the spinal
cord. Egon Ranzi founded an interdisciplinary team together with neurologists and radiologists.
His goal was the optimal treatment for persons with projectiles in their central nervous system
from injuries received in the first world war.
War surgery was an important task at that time during and after the first world war. Therefore
many well known surgeons had to deal with war surgery. They all came from the surgical school
of Eiselsberg: Peter Walzel, later on surgical head in Graz, Burkhardt Breitner, surgical head in
Innsbruck and Wolfgang Denk, surgical head in Vienna. 1931 at the end of his career 14 university
heads and 54 Chief surgeons came from the surgical school of Eiselsberg.
A contemporary scientist was not a surgeon, but his work was nevertheless essentual for the
development of surgery. He was Karl Landsteiner, the worldwide celebrated founder of the
blood-group-systems and Nobel-prize-winner. As a deeply modest man he published his work in
a short abstract in local journal. Nevertheless he found this appropriate place at the Rockefeller
Institute in New York in 1922.
The son of a poor small farmer was born in the year 1877 and became one of the most famous
surgeons in the 20th Century. He was well known in the United States. Hans Finsterer began his
career at the university in the department of Hochenegg and there he developed his methods:
This was abdominal surgery under local anaesthesia and anaesthesia of the splanchnic nerves,
thereby reducing the somatic trauma. And he practiced his modifications of the stomach
resection which improved the functional results and diminished the mortality rates for ulcers
penetrating in the pancreas. He was invited to give lectures and demonstrations in the United
States and became a Master of the international College of Surgeons. He left an indelible imprint
in the history of surgery.
The first third of the 20th Century was a dramatic time, also for the
development of traumatic surgery and partly as a necessity of war
surgery. In a military hospital in South Tirol near the front line a young man
named Lorenz Böhler worked as a traumatic surgeon. His philosophy for
treatment of fractures was based on three principles: painless and proper
reposition, fixation or extension and early mobilization and training.
Lorenz Böhler had a very strong character, illustrated by a story about
him: One of his superior officers was angry about an abduction splint on
an ordinary soldier, because that was not compatible – the officer said –
with the military rules and behaviour of the imperial army. And the officer
ordered the splint be removed. Lorenz Böhler refused that order with the words: the emperor
does’nt know much about splints.
In his long life he became the pioneer of the non-operative traumatology.
Inevitably the dominant city of the monarchy had a leading position. However, this article would
not be complete if I did’nt point out the merits of the other universities of Austria.
The surgical department of the university Graz is relatively young and was founded in 1863. At
this place the orthopaedic pioneer Nicoladoni worked as well as Haberer and Walzel, both well
known with some methods of stomach and biliary surgery.
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