Robert Gersuny

Robert Gersuny ( born January 15, 1844 in Teplitz, Bohemia, † October 31, 1924 in Vienna ) was an Austrian surgeon.

Life

Gersuny was born as the second son of a doctor bathing in Teplitz. He began in 1861 to study medicine in Prague, where he was active in the Corps Austria. He received his doctorate in 1866 and worked as assistant physician at Prague General Hospital under Rudolf Jaksch. The at that time rather primitive treatment methods, in particular the then rampant cholera, depressed him. Even his relationship was not without its tensions to his teacher Jaksch. Even in old age he vividly remembered the saying " If I have made ​​harmless, is achieved my ultimate goal. "

At this time las Gersuny Billroth General Surgery, after which he was engaged to be admitted as a surgical pupil at the clinic, at the Billroth, applied. He was adopted and entered in October 1869 at his post at the Second Surgical University Clinic. Billroth made ​​him in 1872 for his private assistant. The task of a private assistants was difficult at this time, because even major surgeries were performed in the patient's home. He accompanied Bill Roth on his travels as a consulting physician to Poland, Russia and Africa. In the years 1880-1893 Gersuny acted as primary surgeon at Carolinas Children's Hospital in Vienna. During this time he created a reputation as a surgeon by going their own way for the benefit of the sick. So he was able to prove that an isolated bone tuberculosis can be cured by radical removal of the outbreak. For a long time he was one of the busiest surgeons in Vienna. Often he successfully took over cases that were rejected by other doctors as too complicated. In 1882, became first violinist of the Gersuny founded by Bill Roth 1879 Rudolfinerhauses, a hospital with a nursing school in Vienna. After his death in 1894, he took over the management of the Rudolfinerhauses and developed it in subsequent years. He ran it until his death in 1924. His focus was in the field of plastic surgery.

Gersuny is considered the inventor of paraffin injections, with whom he " subcutaneous prostheses " created that become lost, the tissue components replaced. To this end, he injected a substance often used to ointments, the Vaseline, under the skin and observed that the injected mass, if it was allowed some time untouched, unattractive remained in place without being absorbed by the body in a significant way. The fact that remained on the outer skin hardly any traces, prompted Gersuny to apply the method in a number of different forms of the disease, which are mostly a question of to cover the loss of tissue components. However, this was a serious mistake, because in the next few decades, it turned out that the injection of paraffin in many cases can lead to Lipogranulomen. These granulomas arise as a foreign body reaction of the organism to the paraffin. Around the middle of this century, therefore, new substances such as Teflon, silicone and collagen were used.

Gersuny also invented a number of surgical and gynecological surgical procedures that are commonplace today. So he took, among other things in 1890 before the first breast augmentation.

In 1924 in Vienna Dobling ( 19th district ) was named the Gersunygasse after him.

Writings

• Doctor and patient. Vienna 1884
• About misdiagnosis. Vienna 1887
• Remarks about the specialization in medicine. Vienna 1892
• Dregs of life, Hugo Heller & Co., Vienna -Leipzig 1906 ( aphorisms )
• Theodor Billroth. In: Masters of medicine. Volume 4, Vienna - Berlin -Leipzig- Munich, Rikola Verlag, 1922.

Quotes

Aphorisms are only shred of truth, but give out for the whole family.