Paul Berger

Paul Berger (French pronunciation: ​[pɔl bɛʁ.ʒe]; 6 January 1845 Beaucourt, Territoire de Belfort – 1908) was a French physician and surgeon who practised in Paris at the and was Professor of Clinical Surgery and Pathology at the . He is noted for Berger's operation, a method of interscapulothoracic amputation, and for improvements in hernia/intestinal suturing.

Berger was a French physician and surgeon who practised in Paris at the and was Professor of Clinical Surgery and Pathology at the . He developed a method of interscapulothoracic amputation, called Berger's operation after him, and for improvements in hernia/intestinal suturing.

In October 1882 Berger amputated the whole upper limb of a patient with an enchondroma of the humerus, publishing a report the following year. In 1887 he published “L’Amputation du Membre Superieur dans la Contiguite du Tronc”, a detailed monograph on forequarter amputation. In the paper's historical review, Berger credited Ralph Cuming as the originator of the operation. Berger noted only two prior such operations for war injuries, by Cuming in 1808 and by Gaetani Bey in Cairo some thirty years later.

In 1889 a public display of aseptic instruments was held at the Exposition Universelle (1889) in Paris. Berger noted that
"it is impossible not to be struck by the complete transformation that surgical instrument making has undergone in the past few years. This renovation of our instrumentation was the consequence of the revolution that antisepsis introduced in surgical practice; it has been necessary to create entirely new equipment that meets and exceeds the conditions that surgeons consider essential." Berger drew special attention to the various designs for scissor-like articulations that French instrument makers had devised so that they could easily be disassembled for cleaning.

Berger is credited with being the first to don a surgical mask while operating in October 1897. He read a paper "On the Use of a Mask in Operating" before the Surgical Society of Paris on February 22, 1899. He began with the statement:

For several years I have been worried as to the part that drops of liquid projected from the mouth of the operator or his assistants may exercise on the outbreaks of infection which one still sees from time to time under conditions of surgical asepsis which are apparently satisfactory."

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