Wilhelm Wagner (14.01.1848 - 07.08.1900)

Wilhelm Wagner

(14.01.1848-07.08.1900)

A centennial commemoration of a forgotten pioneer neurosurgeon.

Wilhelm Wagner was one of three sons of the pastor to living stream. After graduation, the young Wilhelm Wagner at the University of Giessen enrolled. He went to Marburg, where he obtained a doctorate degree due to his thesis on the percussion of the stomach after abdominal sparkling with which he contributed to the anatomy and the physical diagnosis, to the last semester. As "nobody" man he took as a spa physician at the Bad Nauheim (Hessen), where he drew the attention of managers to be with his versatile knowledge and his hunger constantly to deepen it. He was drafted into the army during the war of 1870 / 71 between Germany and France. He served from the military service in a military hospital in Friedberg. At the peace he stayed in Friedberg and married Marie Herzberger, his great love for the University. His medical practice in Friedberg sprang up quickly. 

He was a gifted surgeon. Although he had been Assistant for any significant surgeons and had never attended an operation he conducted many successful surgery's Nauheimer time and he published the results of its experience in the still barren fonts for doctors. In 1877, when Wagner learned of the possibility of getting a job as a physician at the January European military hospital in Königshütte in Upper Silesia, he ran for it and was hired. Königshütte Wagner came with his family (three children) and moved into an apartment on the ground of the hospital which belonged the Knappschaft (now Hospital No. 3). In addition to his duties as Assistant Medical Director of the surgical Department in the January Science he worked in the oldest Königshütter at to the St. Hedwig, which at that time was in the attic of a located (now Hospital No. 2). Working conditions in Königshütte were not easy. Wagner worked as a doctor, Chief Executive at the same time, and after five years you pointed to a wizard. Still Wagner felt comfortable in the very hard working Upper Silesian who often suffering from diseases caused by accidents and unfavourable working conditions. Quickly he became a member of this community and accepted the Silesian ground and the Silesian essence so far that he saw his destiny as his home country and the city of Chorzów city Silesia. Wagner's recognition in the area of surgery bears witness to the fact that he was inducted as a young doctor in the German society for surgery. His own experiences from treatment of spine and spinal cord injuries he worked together with Paul Stolper and published them in the book the injury of spine and spinal cord (1898). 

The biggest merit but had Wagner the introduction to the neurosurgery, a new technical work based on operational opening of the cranium with formation of bones and fascia flap again could be put in place after the procedure (the osteoplastische skull lobe in the Craniotomie Wagnerischer cloth, called Wagnerische operation). We used this method at Extirpationen intracranialer excesses Gehirnabszessen and resections of the cerebral cortex in epilepsy. The brain surgery could evolve only due to the research in the field of brain and spinal cord physiology. The first operation of brain tumors held in 1884 and was by the London surgeon John Rickman Godlee (1859-1925) from the diagnosis of neurologists Hughes Bennet (1848-1901) running. As a pioneer in neurosurgery, the French surgeon Mathieu Jaboulay (1860-1913), which had taken a number of intracranialer operations since 1890 is in General and first 1899 sympathectomy of hamstrings in trophic disorders.

Source: http://www.ostdeutsche-biographie.de/wagnwi98.htm