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Theodor Billroth Biography

Theodor Billroth Image

BILLROTH, Theodor (1829-94). A German surgeon. He was born at Bergen, on the island of Rügen, and studied medicine at the universities of Griefswald, Göttingen, Berlin, and Vienna. He was the assistant of Langenbeck at Berlin and was appointed professor of surgery at the universities of Zürich (1859) and Vienna (1867). Billroth was one of the greatest operators of modern times and one of the foremost promoters of histology, pathology, and military surgery. His publications include the following valuable contributions to medical literature: Die allgemeine chirurgische Pathologie and Therapie (translated into nearly all the principal languages of Europe, as also into the Japanese, 1863; 16th ed., 1906); Chirurgische Briefe aus den Kriegslazaretten in Weissenburg and Mannheim (1872); Ueber den Transport der im, Felde Verwundeten and Kranken (with Mundy, 1874); Die Krankenpflege im Haus and im Hospital (6th ed., 1899; Eng. trans., The Care of the Sick at Home and in the Hospital). Billroth was a skillful amateur musician, and after his death there was published his Wer ist Musikalisch? (3d ed., 1898).