Johann Mikulicz-Radecki

MIKULICZ Johann (Johann Mikulicz-Radecki, 1850–1905), one of the most talented students of Billroth, under whom he completed his residency and assistantship.

From 1882, director of the surgical clinic at the German university in Krakow, and later in Breslau. An active proponent of antisepsis and asepsis. He was the first to propose the use of cotton gloves during clean operations. He began to widely introduce into clinical practice the treatment of tuberculous cold abscesses with iodoform-glycerin emulsion, proposed by Billroth. Together with Kocher, he was a pioneer in the surgical treatment of goiter, which was facilitated by his work in Silesia (Breslau), where goiter is endemic. Author of numerous operative methods that have not lost their significance even at the present time. Many of them bear his name: drainage of the abdominal cavity with a special tampon, pyloroplasty and cardioplasty for spasmodic conditions of the cardia and pylorus, modification of the Billroth II gastric resection (see Stomach), resection of the rectum for its prolapse, osteoplastic resection of the foot, etc., although the priority of the latter method was disputed with Mikulicz by the Russian surgeon Vladimirov. The method entered the literature under the name "Vladimirov-Mikulicz operation." An indisputable merit of Mikulicz is the construction of the modern esophagoscope and the development of the technique of esophagoscopy and gastroscopy. Together with E. von Bergmann and P. Bruns, he was a founder of the well-known manual "Handbuch der praktischen Chirurgie" (Vols. I–IV, Stuttgart, 1899–1901), which was published in 1923–27 in its 5th and 6th editions in 6 volumes under the editorship of Garré, Küttner, and Lexer. From the huge number of Mikulicz's works, the main ones are: "Über Gastroskopie u. Oesophagoskopie" (Wien. med. Presse, 1881, No. 45–50); "Über die Anwendung der Antisepsis bei Laparotomien" (Arch. f. klin. Chir., B. XXV, 1880); "Eine neue osteoplastische Resectionsmethode am Fusse" (ibid., B. XXVI, 1881); "Die Verwendung des Jodoforms in der Chirurgie" (Wiener Klin., Jhrg. VIII, 1882); "Zur operativen Behandlung des Prolapsus recti et coli invaginati" (Verhandl. d. Deutsch. Gesellschaft f. Chir., B. XVII, Berlin, 1888); "Die chirurgische Behandlung des chronischen Magengeschwurs" (Arch. f. klin. Chir., B. LV, 1897); "Das Operieren in sterilisierten Zwirnhandschuhen mit Mundbinde" (Zentralbl. f. Chir., 1897, No. 26); "Beiträge zur Technik der Operationen des Magencarcinoms" (Arch. f. klin. Chir., B. LVII, 1898). Together with W. Kümmell, he published a major monograph "Die Krankheiten des Mundes" (1st ed., Jena, 1898; 4th ed., 1922). Mikulicz founded, together with B. Naunyn, and edited the first 14 volumes of the journal "Mitteilungen a. d. Grenzgebieten der Medizin u. Chirurgie" (Jena, 1896–1905).