Baron Carl von Rokitansky | |
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Baron Carl von Rokitansky
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Born |
Hradec Králové, Bohemia |
19 February 1804
Died | 23 July 1878 Vienna, Austria-Hungary |
(aged 74)
Fields | physician pathologist |
Alma mater | University of Vienna |
Influenced | Cesare Lombroso |
Baron Carl von Rokitansky (German: Carl Freiherr von Rokitansky, Czech: Karel Rokytanský) (19 February 1804 – 23 July 1878), was a Bohemian physician, pathologist, humanist philosopher and liberal politician.
Carl von Rokitansky was born in Hradec Králové (German: Königgrätz), Bohemia. He studied at the Charles University in Prague (1821–1824) and attained a doctorate in medicine on 6 March 1828 at the University of Vienna. In 1830, he became assistant to Johann Wagner, the professor of pathological anatomy, and succeeded him in 1834 as prosector, being at the same time made extraordinary professor. He became a full professor ten years later.
In 1847, to his duties as a teacher, Rokitansky added the onerous office of medico-legal anatomist to the city of Vienna.
In 1863, Rokitansky was appointed by Anton von Schmerling as medical adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, wherein he advised on all routine matters of medical teaching, including patronage.
As a young professor, Rokitansky recognized that the still little noted discipline of pathological anatomy could be of great service to clinical work in the hospital, because it could offer new diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities to the bed-side physician.
Ludwig Freiherr Baron von Türkheim (1777-1846) established the Second Vienna Medical School in 1836. Around Rokitansky's autopsies the school began "one of the most fruitful and brilliant epochs of Viennese medicine". A paradigm shift occurred, led by Rokitansky, Josef Škoda, and Ferdinand von Hebra, moving from the notion of medicine as a branch of natural philosophy, to the more modern notion of it as a science.