Hoffa

HOFFA, Albert (1859-1907), one of the founders of modern orthopedics. After defending his doctoral dissertation ("Uber Nephritis saturnina", Freiburg, 1883), he became an assistant to Professor Maas at the surgical department in Würzburg. Having received the title of associate professor in 1886, he participated in the development of pathological-anatomical and chemical-bacteriological questions that concerned surgical thought at that time. To learn what was not available in official medicine, Hoffa turned to the experience of simple, "uneducated" people - the masseur Metzger and the self-taught orthotist Hessing. In 1893, Hoffa went to America to study orthopedics. His appointment as professor in 1895 occurred when the clinic in Würzburg became an attractive center for physicians wishing to study orthopedics. In 1902, Hoffa received an invitation to Berlin as director of the university polyclinic. Here Hoffa also developed activity in the public sphere. - The Humboldt sanatorium on the Canary Islands, children's sanatoriums in Nowenlychen and Gross-Lichterfelde, the census of all physically defective children in Germany, and the establishment of the Berlin-Brandenburg treatment and educational home for the disabled - these were his initiatives and propaganda. Hoffa played a leading role in the organization of the "German Society of Orthopedic Surgery" and its congresses. In 1891 appeared: the first edition of the textbook - "Lehrbuch der orthopadischen Chirurgie" (Stuttgart; translated into many languages and went through 5 editions during the author's lifetime) and "Lehrbuch der Frakturen u. Luxationen" (Wurzburg). Then followed works that have not become outdated to this day: "Technik der Massage" (Stuttgart, 1897); "Kinesiotherapie" (Vienna, 1898); "Atlas und Grundriss der Verbandlehre" (Munich, 1900). In 1892, to satisfy the requests of the growing number of students and followers for information and criticism, Hoffa founded the "Deutsche Zeitschrift für orthopadische Chirurgie".