Emil Noeggerath for the hundredth anniversary of his birthday on October 5th nineteen hundred and twenty seven. Communication faite au sixième Congrès International d'Histoire de la Medecine (Leyde-Amsterdam, 18-23 juillet 1927.) / [Paul Diepgen].

  • Diepgen, Paul, 1878-1966.
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Emil Noeggerath for the hundredth anniversary of his birthday on October 5th nineteen hundred and twenty seven. Communication faite au sixième Congrès International d'Histoire de la Medecine (Leyde-Amsterdam, 18-23 juillet 1927.) / [Paul Diepgen]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nostic he enlarged the methods of palpation by introduction of digital investi¬ gation through the bladder and the hooking in of the uterus in feeling the adnexe. NOEGGERATH was also an early representant of microscopical inves¬ tigation of particles of tissue removed from the uterus. NOEGGERATHS short ai tides and publications in the line of conservativ gynaecology are numerous. Certain though he felt as operating surgeon, his conscientiousness always war¬ ned him, to prefer the dangerless proceeding to the dangerous one. He seve¬ rely criticised the uncritical inclination, to operate and shows the dangers that are also in plainer diagnostical and therapeutical operative procedures. One case where he succeeded in removing manuel a twelve year old invetereted, inver- sio uteri got a certain renown in literature. In a time, when the Curette was still rejected by important authorities he recommended her, together with SIMON and others, to remove proliferations of the mucose uteri. The conservativ treatment of the fibrome by galvanic current, recommended by APOSTOL! met with his special interest, though he was fully aware of the purely sympto¬ matic success of the method. He extended the field of indication also unto other tumours. However, he did not succeed in changing the «reluctant» recep¬ tion of this way of treatment in Germany into a more confident one. Several attempts, to improve the instrumentarium of the conservativ gynaecology show his technical ability. He approached operativ treatment with the entire consciousness of res¬ ponsibility which in the days of beginning of modern technic and antisepsis a physician would feel obliged to still more than in our days. NOEGGERATH is among those who first realised the importance of Lister and gave heart and soul for his ideas. Being convinced of transference of gonorrhoea )by fingers and instruments, he demands in eighteen seventy two the utmost asepsis even for an ordinary investigation. Reading his methods of desinfection one has to admit, that they are on a much higher scale than those appearing two years later in the first edition of the operativ gynaecology by HEGAR-KALTEN- BACH. It is almost pathetic to read those passages where he describes the troublesome preparations for antiseptic operations in a private house. He has an active part in various directions in the development of the theory of the operation of prolapsus ovariotomy and total exstirpation of the uterus. The high percentage of mortality, however, influenced him over and over again, to limit operative activity. In the eightieth regular mischief was done with surgical treat¬ ment of the laceration of cervix rent, since EMMET had drawln attention to it. To us it seems almost amusing, to see mentioned salivation, epilepsia, convul¬ sions, dementia, and other mental diseases among the twenty-six so called consequences that NOEGGERATH gathers from literature. He opposed this in eighteen eighty seven in Wiesbaden and declared the laceration of cervix uteri for a harmless accessory condition. Renowned gynaecologists, like SAENGER, SKUTCH, AHLFELD and FEHL1NG opposed him, only HEGAR agreed with him; time proved, he was right. What in due reason made NOEGGERATHS renown, are his investigations on gonorrhoea and her secondary diseases in women. It was in a time when according to PASTEUR and LISTER the connection of contagious diseases with a living virus was presumed with good reason, but when the medical world was still far from clear perception of the process and — as with NOEG¬ GERATH himself — the genius epidemicus loci held an important place — it was then, when NOEGGERATH issued his first publications on the subject. This was in eighteen seventy two, three years before ROBERT KOCH foun¬ ded the modern bacteriological methods of experiment, and seven years before NEISSER discovered the gonococcus. As he himself was far too critical, to con¬ sider the hypomycetes, discovered by him, as aetiological factor, he was entirely dependent on his clinical observations which he enlarged by patholo¬ gical conditions, in stating diagnoses. The result is an exact description of the secondary diseases of gonorrhoea that in their essential lines are still valid