Rudolph Bergh

Rudolph Bergh
Image of Rudolph Bergh by Peder Severin Krøyer in 1894
Born	(1824-10-15)15 October 1824 Copenhagen, Denmark
Died	20 July 1909(1909-07-20) (aged 84) Copenhagen, Denmark
Nationality	Danish
Fields	medicine and malacology

Rudolph Bergh (October 15, 1824 – July 20, 1909), full name Ludvig Sophus Rudolph Bergh, was a Danish physician and malacologist. He worked in Copenhagen.

As a doctor his speciality was sexually transmitted diseases. In Copenhagen a hospital and a street are named after him.

Bergh was also an active malacologist, i.e. a zoologist who studies molluscs, in particular the nudibranchs, shell-less marine gastropods. He had well over 90 publications in this field and took part in a scientific expedition to Indonesia. He named and described numerous species of nudibranchs.

Rudolph Bergh was born in Copenhagen. His father was the son of the chief physician in the army of Louis Anton Berg. His mother was Anne Sophie Kirstine (maiden name Pedersen). Bergh graduated from the Det von Westenske Institut in 1842, and received his medical degree in 1849.

Dr. Rudolph Bergh became an attending physician at what was then Almindeligt Hospital, the general hospital in Amaliegade, Copenhagen, in 1863. He worked in the department of skin diseases and venereal diseases. In 1886 he moved from there to Vestre Hospital, where he worked until 1903.

Bergh died in 1909. One year after his death, Vestre Hospital was renamed Rudolph Bergh Hospital in honor of his memory. At that hospital, anyone who wished to could be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, and get advice on safe sex and birth control without any change and while retaining their anonymity. In 2000, some of these functions were transferred to Bispebjerg Hospital.

There is a bust of Bergh in Copenhagen, in front of the eponymous "Rudolph Bergh's Hospital", on Tietgensgade. The bust was a gift from his colleagues and stood for years in his home. After his death Bergh's widow donated it to the hospital.