Ferdinand Sauerbruch
| Ferdinand Sauerbruch | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch July 3, 1875 Barmen, German Empire |
| Died |
July 2, 1951 (aged 75) Berlin, West Germany |
| Residence | German Empire, Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, West Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | |
| Institutions |
As faculty member As fellow |
| Known for |
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| Notable awards | |
As faculty member
As fellow
Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch (3 July 1875 – 2 July 1951) was a German surgeon.
Sauerbruch was born in Barmen (now a district of Wuppertal), Germany. He studied medicine at the Philipps University of Marburg, the University of Greifswald, the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, and the University of Leipzig, from the last of which he graduated in 1902. He went to Breslau in 1903, where he developed the Sauerbruch chamber, a pressure chamber for operating on the open thorax, which he demonstrated in 1904. This invention was a breakthrough in thorax medicine and allowed heart and lung operations to take place at greatly reduced risk. As a battlefield surgeon during World War I, he developed several new types of limb prostheses, which for the first time enabled simple movements to be executed with the remaining muscle of the patient.
Sauerbruch worked at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich from 1918 to 1927 on surgical techniques and diets for treating tuberculosis. From 1928 to 1949, he was the head of the surgical department at the Charité in Berlin, attaining international fame for his innovative operations. Because of his experience and extraordinary skills he quickly attained an international reputation and operated on many prominent patients. At the same time he was well known for his uncompromising and passionate dedication to all patients independent of their social, political or ethnical backgrounds. Before World War II, the Nazi Government awarded him the German National Prize for Art and Science. Sauerbruch position towards the Nazi government is ambiguous and the subject of debate. In his position he was clearly in contact with the political elite but he was never a member of and did not support the political objectives of the NSDAP. He was, however, a fervent nationalist who wanted to undo the "humiliation of Versailles" and was keen to show off his country as an advanced and sophisticated society. While he had accepted the German Nationalpreis, a short-lived German alternative to the Nobel Prize, he also publicly spoke out for people who were prosecuted (e.g. Liebermann). He was part of the so-called Mittwochgesellschaft, a group of scientists that included critical voices and was later arrested because his son Peter had ties to Claus von Stauffenberg.
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