Today in Technology History
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February 6
A doctor who died 108 years ago was a pioneer in the field of abdominal surgery.
Christian Albert Theodor Billroth was born in 1829 in the town of Bergen, in what is now Germany. His father died when he was only six years old. Billroth was a talented musician and throughout his life he maintained a close friendship with the composer Brahms.
After studying medicine at various universities, Billroth obtained a medical degree at the age of 23. He spent the rest of the 1850s working in a surgical clinic in Berlin. During the first half of the 1860s, he took a professorship in Switzerland and published an important textbook on surgery. He moved to a different university in Vienna in 1867; it was there that he made his greatest achievements.
Billroth adopted, quite early, the antiseptic medical procedures that had recently been developed. He realized that the reduced risk of deadly infection meant that new surgeries could now be attempted. In 1872, he became the first surgeon to move a section of a patient's esophagus. In 1873, he performed the first laryngectomy (removal of the larynx). He performed many other groundbreaking surgeries to remove cancerous tissues.
His most important innovation was a surgical technique called gastric re-sectioning: removing a section of the stomach, and reconnecting the remaining stomach to the intestines. Two of his stomach surgery procedures, still used today, are called the Billroth I and II in his honor.
Billroth died on February 6, 1894 at the age of 64.
Related links:
Click here to see a picture of Billroth's gravesite.
Click here and here to read about and see a famous painting of Billroth.
Click here to see pictures from a book Billroth wrote about gunshot wounds.
Click here to read about the "Billroth Society" in Germany.
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