Langenbeck, Bernhard von (ennobled 1864)

Surgeon

born: 08.11.1810 in Padingbüttel near Bremerhaven

died: 29.09.1887 in Wiesbaden

As the son of the Protestant pastor Georg Langenbeck, Langenbeck initially received a humanist education at Andreas-Gymnasium in Hildesheim. After graduating, he studied medicine at the University of Göttingen, where he received his doctorate in 1835 with a prize-winning thesis. Langenbeck received a scholarship for this research, which enabled him to go on a two-year study trip to England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

In 1838, he qualified as a professor of pathological anatomy and physiology in Göttingen, where he became an associate professor of surgery and ophthalmology in the summer semester of 1840 and a full professor in 1841.

In 1842 he was appointed to the chair of surgery at the University of Kiel. In 1848 he moved to Berlin. In the years that followed, he turned the University Surgical Clinic into a center of modern surgery. Together with the physiologist Johannes Müller and the internist Lukas Schönlein, he was the pioneer of scientifically oriented surgery. They established the international reputation of the Berlin Medical Faculty in the middle of the 19th century.

In the field of surgery, he specialized in facial plastic surgery (cleft palate, rhinoplasty) and bone and joint surgery. More than two dozen surgical methods and instruments still bear his name today. His experience as Prussian surgeon general in the three German wars of unification in 1864, 1866 and 1871 resulted in numerous innovations in war surgery, medical administration and the transportation of the wounded.

In 1872, he founded the "German Society for Surgery", which he led as its first president for thirteen years. In 1864 he was ennobled by King Wilhelm I.

Bernhard von Langenbeck and his wife Arnoldine Reinbold (* July 9, 1817; married on April 8, 1840; † December 4, 1886 in Wiesbaden) had a son Julius and four daughters.

At the age of 72, he retired to Wiesbaden in 1882, where he died a year after his wife. He was buried in the family plot in the Old St. Matthew's Churchyard in Berlin-Schöneberg. In Wiesbaden, Langenbeckplatz and Langenbeckstraße were named after him.