Albrecht von Graefe

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Albrecht von Graefe ( May 22nd 1828 in Berlin † July 20, 1870 ibid ) was royally Prussian Secret Medizinalrat and full professor of ophthalmology at the Friedrich- Wilhelms- University of Berlin. He founded in Germany the subject of ophthalmology.

Family

He came from a Saxon family and was the son of the royal Prussian Secret Medizinalrats and general staff of the army physician Prof. Dr. Karl von Graefe (1787-1840), professor of surgery and director of the surgical clinic of the University of Berlin, and of Auguste Old ( 1797-1857 ). Father Charles was only at 2./14. Been collected in February 1826 in Saint Petersburg in the Polish hereditary nobility with Prussian nobility recognition on 16 November 1826 in Berlin.

Graefe married on June 7, 1862 in Sacrow at Potsdam Anna Countess Knuth (House Conrad Borg ) ( born March 15, 1842 in Frederiksborg, Denmark, † March 22, 1872 in Nice, Southern France), the daughter of the royal Danish chamberlain and bailiff Hans Schack Count Knuth and Frederikke de Løvenørn. His son, Albrecht (1868-1933) was a member of parliament.

Life

Graefe studied medicine, mathematics, physics and chemistry in Berlin. He wrote his dissertation in 1847 still in Latin. After that, he was assistant physician in Prague, where he began to devote himself entirely to ophthalmology.

He continued his studies in Paris, Vienna and London in 1852 and returned back to Berlin, where he habilitated and a private eye hospital with 120 beds was opened, which soon enjoyed world fame both in practice and in research. In the treatment Graefe was extremely socially adjusted, since it made ​​no difference in terms of social classes - not least because of his student Julius Hirschberg called him in an obituary an "apostle of suffering humanity ."

Two years later, in 1854, he founded the " Archives of Ophthalmology " the first ophthalmological journal. 1866 Graefe became director of the ophthalmological department of the Charité, and was particularly successful in the treatment of glaucoma, and squint (strabismus ). More than 10,000 eye operations he should have done. Various terms have the name of the physician, such as the " Graefe syndrome", the " Graefe - spot" or " Graefe - reflex". The consistent application developed by Helmholtz ophthalmoscope goes back to Graefe, who died at the age of 42 from pulmonary tuberculosis.

Honors and memorials

It is light, sweet and lovely to behold the sun.

• In Berlin -Mitte is a monument to the doctor, which was created in 1882 with worldwide donations and on the initiative of the Berlin Medical Society on designs by Martin Gropius and Heino forging of the sculptor Rudolf Leopold Siemering. The monument originally stood in the garden of the Charité and has its current location in front of the hospital grounds at the corner Luisen-/Schumannstraße, just a few steps away from the monument to the founder of modern pathology Rudolf Virchow. After its destruction, the monument after the Second World War has been restored. The bronze sculpture pays tribute to Albrecht von Graefe with the two-part inscription: O, a noble gift of heaven is the light of the eye - all beings live by the light. Each happy creature - the plant itself returns joyfully to the light.
• A prize for the promotion of Ophthalmology was created in memory of Albrecht von Graefe through donations of German teachers of Ophthalmology and the International Association of Rhine - Westphalian ophthalmologists.

Stamp of the German Federal Post Office Berlin 1978

Stamp of Deutsche Post in 1978