Sauerbruch was the leading German surgeon in the first half of the 20th century. He became known in 1904 at the 33rd Congress of the German Society of Surgery. There he introduced the “pressure differential procedure” he had developed, providing the basis for open-chest surgery. At that time, patients in torax surgery, as a result of insufficient breathing, were in acute danger of death.
Curriculum vitae
July 03, 1875 Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch was born in Barmen. After the death of his father, Sauerbruch grew up with his grandfather in poor circumstances. Sauerbruch’s mother and sister enabled him to study medicine.
From 1895 to 1902 he studied at the universities of Marburg, Jena and Göttingen. He acquired his practical medical skills in Berlin, Erfurt and Kassel.
In 1902 he received his doctorate in medicine. He then went to the University of Surgery in Breslau for a few years as a volunteer physician.
1904 On April 6, Sauerbruch successfully performed an open torax surgery in public with his negative pressure chamber, also called “Sauerbruch chamber”.
1905 – 1915 Sauerbruch becomes chief surgeon at the University of Greifswald. In 1907 he goes to Marburg as head of the polyclinic and primarily researches the possibilities and limits of organ transplantation. In 1910 he receives the professorship at the Zurich University Hospital and becomes the director of the Surgical Clinic and Polyclinic of the Zurich Cantonal Hospital. 1914 World War I begins, Sauerbruch volunteers and becomes consulting surgeon to an army corps.
1915 Sauerbruch is granted leave of absence by the German government and returns to the Zurich University Hospital. Here he devotes himself to the development of the “Sauerbruch Hand” for the war-disabled. With his novel arm and leg prostheses, Sauerbruch created the first usable survival aids. This richly articulated, surprisingly mobile prosthesis secured him a popularity rarely gained by a physician. In 1916 he published the first part of his paper: “The arbitrarily movable artificial hand”.
1918 – 1927 Sauerbruch is appointed to the chair of surgery at Munich University. He develops the “overturning plastic” named after him. After removal of a femur destroyed by cancer, for example, the healthy lower leg bone is transplanted into the hip joint socket. The lower leg is replaced by a prosthesis.
1920 – 1925 Publication of the two-volume work “Surgery of the Thoracic Organs” and the second part of “The Arbitrarily Movable Artificial Hand”.
1928 – 1949 Professor of Surgery at the Charité Hospital in Berlin and Head of the University Surgical Clinic. As another sensational surgical success, he succeeds in the first removal of a bulge in the heart wall after an infarction. ( cardiac aneurysm ). Over the years Sauerbruch became the editor of the journal “Neue Deutsche Chirurgie”. After the end of World War II, Sauerbruch participated in the reconstruction of the Berlin health care system. When the “Chirurgische Gesellschaft in Berlin” was founded, he was elected chairman.
1949 – 1951 In December he submits a request for retirement. Despite age-related impairment of his surgical confidence and mental agility, Sauerbruch continues to operate. In 1951, the autobiography he dictated, “That Was My Life,” is published.
Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch dies in Berlin on July 02, 1951.
