Osiander

Osiander Friedrich Benjamin (Friedrich Benjamin Osiander, 1759-1822), obstetrician, received his medical education in Tübingen, and his specialized obstetrical training from the best German obstetricians of his time: Fried in Strasbourg and Stein in Kassel. Then for about 10 years he practiced obstetrics in his homeland, where he became so famous for successful operations in complicated births that he received an invitation to head the department of obstetrics at Göttingen, where he established an obstetrical clinic. Here his entire 30-year scientific and teaching career took place. O. entered the history of obstetrics as an advocate for an extremely active (operative) approach to the slightest deviations in the course of labor. In his views, he found himself in sharp contradiction with the then most authoritative Vienna school of obstetrics (Boer) and conducted an intense polemic with it. According to reports from his clinic, over 30 years 2,540 births took place there, with forceps being applied in 1,016 cases and a version by the foot performed in 111 cases. Thus, with O., forceps were used once for every 2.5 births, whereas in Vienna, Boer applied forceps once for every 226 births, i.e., almost a hundred times less frequently. These figures speak for themselves. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that O. was an outstanding obstetrician of his time and contributed much valuable knowledge to the science and especially to the 'art' of obstetrics. He invented numerous instruments and left a large number of scientific works; of these, the first part of his unfinished textbook ('Lehrbuch der Entbindungskunst', Teil 1, Göttingen, 1799) and his three-volume manual ('Handbuch der Entbindungskunst', B. I-III, Tübingen, 1818-25) are still of interest today.