Heinrich Curschmann

Heinrich Curschmann (Heinrich Curschmann, 1846-1910), a distinguished German physician. He was a student of Leuckart, Eckardt, Seitz, and Moritz Traube. For some time, Curschmann served as a physician at the Moabit Hospital in Berlin; in 1888 he became director of the Hamburg state hospitals. In the same year, according to his plan and under his direction, a new general hospital was built in Hamburg-Eppendorf. Shortly after this, he moved to Leipzig, where he remained until his death. Curschmann authored numerous works on anatomy and pathological anatomy, pharmacology, and various questions of private pathology and therapy, primarily concerning diseases of the heart, aorta, and liver. His greatest fame came from his works on exudative bronchiolitis and its relationship to bronchial asthma ("Uber Bronchiolitis exsudativa u. ihr Verhaltnis zum Asthma nervosum", Deutsch. Arch. f. klin. Med., Vol. XXXII, 1882-83), as well as on bronchial asthma and pneumobulbar asthma [a polemic with Germain See] - "Uber pneumobulbares Asthma" (Deutsche med. Wochenschr., 1886, No. 3). In these works, the spirals named after Curschmann were first described (see Bronchial asthma). In more recent times, together with Goldschneider, Curschmann developed the method of orthopercussion. Curschmann proposed a tin mask or funnel for inhaling medications, covering the mouth and nose, with a protrusion where cotton soaked in medication is placed; furthermore, Curschmann proposed a special method for puncturing the pericardium and a trocar for puncturing the skin in cases of edema. He also described pain points in organic and hysterical analgesias and anesthesias, the irritation of which by faradic current causes an increase in blood pressure. Curschmann participated in the largest multi-volume guides on private pathology and therapy - Ziemssen (H. Ziems-sen, Lpz., 1875-85) and Nothnagel (H. Nothnagel, Wien, 1894-1905), for which he monographically presented smallpox, typhus and typhoid fever, functional disorders of male sexual organs.