Langenbeck

LANGENBECK Bernhard (Bernhard Langenbeck, 1810-87), the greatest German surgeon. The activities of L., who was a brilliant representative of the old pre-antisepsis era, took place on the threshold of the transition to modern surgery. Before dedicating himself to surgery, L. received thorough training in physiology and for some time even held the chair of pathological anatomy in Göttingen. He proposed a whole series of operations, of which 21 operations bear his name, and some are still in common use today. Among them, it is sufficient to mention resections of joints, plastic operations on the face and oral cavity (uranoplasty), resection of the larynx, etc. According to contemporaries, L. was a talented lecturer and brilliant surgical technician. L. became the founder of one of the most brilliant surgical schools in Europe, whose representatives were the corifaei of surgery Billroth, Esmarch, and their students Mikulicz, Bergmann, Eiselberg, and others. The academic activities of L. took place first in Kiel, and then in Berlin.

The greatest merit of L. is the creation of a journal that now bears his name (Archiv für klinische Chirurgie, B., from 1860), and the founding in 1872 of the society of German surgeons, which annually holds all-German surgical congresses. The main works of L.: 'Neues Verfahren zur Chiloplastik durch Ablosung und Verziehung des Lippensaumes' (Deutsche Klinik, Band VII, 1855); 'Die Uranoplastik mittels Ablosung des mucosperiostalen Gaumenuberzuges' (Arch. f. klinische Chir., B. II, 1862); 'Uber eine neue Methode der totalen Rhinoplastik' (Berl. klinische Wochenschrift, 1864, № 2); 'Uber die Endresultate der Gelenkresektionen im Kriege' (Arch. f. klin. Chir., B. XVI, 1874); 'Uber Extirpation des Pharynx' (ibid., B. XXIV, 1879).