Wilhelm Meyer (physician)

Hans Wilhelm Meyer ( * October 19, 1824 in Fredericia, Denmark, † June 3, 1895 in Venice, Italy) was a Danish physician. He described 1868 as the first adenoids constitution with nasal obstruction, chronic mouth breathing, snoring and hearing impairment. He recognized the adenoid vegetations in the nasopharynx as a cause.

At the same time he also described a surgical method for the removal of the adenoids with the ring diameter, or Adenotom. The adenoidectomy is today one of the most commonly performed surgeries in children.

Biography

Hans Wilhelm Meyer was born in Fredericia, the son of a Danish military doctor. The childhood years he spent in Holstein. In 1849, he allowed himself to do the Holstein army as a military doctor and took thus the war against Denmark in part. In 1853 he returned to his homeland and settled as a general practitioner in Copenhagen. Here he acquired a significant and extensive special practice because of its great conscientiousness and his humane view of life. In 1865 he opened a private clinic in 1867, he discovered adenoid vegetations. In 1868 he published his discovery in the Hospitals - Tidende and 1870 more releases in the Medico - Surgicalen Transactions. In 1873 he gave a detailed description of the disease in the Archives of Otolaryngology and thus gained international recognition.

Meyer died on June 3, 1895 in Venice with typhus and was buried in the graves island of San Michele in Venice. The grave is still available and has been restored by order of the Danish society otolaryngological 2006.

1898 a monumental, four -meter-high monument to Dr. Hans Wilhelm Meyer was built in Copenhagen on beach boulevard near the Gefionplatz ( gefion Plads ). Funded by donations from Denmark and abroad monument is made of gray and red granite and bears a bronze portrait bust Meyers ( modeled by WM Runeberg ). Presented to the base is the larger than life figure of the goddess of healing Hygieia ( modeled by Wilhelm Bissen ). The monument is now in Amorpark (Danish Amorparken ) before the Imperial Hospital in the district of Copenhagen Oesterbro.