Bernhard Heine

Bernhard Heine
The German physician Bernhard Heine
Born	(1800-08-20)August 20, 1800 Schramberg, Germany
Died	July 31, 1846(1846-07-31) (aged 45) Thun, Switzerland

Bernhard Heine (August 20, 1800, Schramberg (Black Forest) – July 31, 1846, Glockenthal near Thun (Switzerland)) was a German physician, bone specialist and the inventor of the osteotome, a medical tool for cutting bones.

Bernhard Heine was born on August 20, 1800 as the son of a tanner in Schramberg. At the age of ten (according to other references, thirteen) years he was apprenticed to his uncle Johann Georg Heine in Würzburg as an orthopaedic mechanic. Without any enrolment he later attended lectures in medicine at the University of Würzburg. After a number of journeys he took over his own department in his uncle's orthopaedic institute. When Johann Georg moved to the Netherlands in 1829 Bernhard - together with his cousin Joseph Heine - became the head of the Würzburg institution. In 1837 Bernhard Heine married his cousin (Johann Georg's daughter) Anna Heine (*1801).

In 1830, after long years of research and development, Bernhard Heine presented a medical tool to his colleagues. It was a "bone saw", which he called osteotome and which revolutionized surgical treatment. His invention was a great success among medical experts all over Europe. Heine travelled to other parts of Germany, France and even Russia to present it to other surgeons. In 1836 already a doctoral thesis on the "Osteotome and its application" was published in Munich.