Eduard Zirm

Eduard Konrad Zirm ( born March 18, 1863 in Vienna, † March 5, 1944 in Olomouc, Moravia ) was an Austrian ophthalmologist who in 1905 performed the first successful organ transplant performed.

Career

Zirm grew up in Vienna. Then the father died early, he and his sister Adele were drawn by herself from the mother. After visiting the Scots high school he studied at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna and worked for two years at the Institute of Anatomy as a demonstrator. He then worked as an assistant doctor at the eye clinic Stellwag and, after his promotion to the Second Eye Clinic in Vienna, where he worked as an ophthalmologist first assistant to Professor Stellwag. His model and at the same time teacher and promoter was Theodor Billroth.

In 1892 he got a job in the hospital of Olomouc in Moravia, where in 1894 he took over the treatment of eye patients. Because of its success in this area is also a Department of Ophthalmology has been scheduled in the planned hospital in Olomouc country, one of the largest and most modern eye clinic was for many years.

Transplantation

On December 7, 1905 he performed the first successful organ transplant in the cornea. After a Ätzkalkunfall the blind laborer Alois Glogar the cornea of ​​the unfortunate 11 -year-old Karl Bräuer was implanted. One of the biggest problems was then that one the cornea itself could not sew without a microscope, which is why Dr. Zirm they tied from the outside. Even after healing, the lens not clouded. After a few hours the patient was able to see again and was seeing up to his death.

Developed by Zirm surgical method is still the basis for the healing of corneal damage. Derived from this operation, the current heart, kidney and liver transplants. In his Olomouc years 1894-1928 Eduard Zirm led with a small staff 7,866 cataract surgeries and numerous other corneal transplantation ( keratoplasty ) by.

On March 5, 1944 Zirm died in Olomouc. He is buried in Graz at St. Peter's Cemetery.

Works

• The world as a feeling, a natural-philosophical study for professionals and lay people. Franz Deuticke, Leipzig and Vienna, 1937
• A successful keratoplasty. Graefe's Archive for ophthalmology, 1906
• About Hornhautpfropfung. Wiener clinical Wochenschrift, 1907