has never changed so dramatically in any twenty-year period; in those two
decades, anesthesia was discovered and antiseptic surgical treatment was
introduced. In the Franco-Prussian War, German acceptance of the
antiseptic technique was instrumental in vastly superior surgical outcomes
among Prussian forces (cared for by Langenbeck and his associates)
compared to the old-fashioned treatment rendered by the French doctors.
German and Austrian physicians therefore became among the earliest and
most ardent adopters of Listerism.
Bernhard von Langenbeck was heralded as a humanitarian in the
treatment of both allies and adversaries, and as a founding member of both
the German Red Cross and the Geneva International Convention,
concluded, “a wounded enemy is no more an enemy, but a comrade
needing help.”^6 The seemingly endless wars of Prussia and Germany in the
19th and 20th centuries would demand many contributions from the
German surgeons, and in a sick twist of fate, German surgeons were still
pioneering surgery during World War II, with injured American soldiers
returning home with innovative orthopedic implants net yet imagined in
the United States.
Langenbeck’s other major contribution was his apprentices themselves;
he is credited with training nearly every prominent surgical operator of his
time, including Billroth, Emil Theodor Kocher, and Friedrich
Trendelenburg. His idea of organized training following medical school,
wherein the young pupil would live at the hospital and gradually assume
greater responsibility over the course of years, has earned him the
sobriquet as the “father of surgical residency.”
If John Hunter is the father of scientific surgery, then Langenbeck can
rightly be described as the progenitor of modern antiseptic battlefield
surgery, physician battlefield neutrality, and surgical residency.
Langenbeck was at his pinnacle when antisepsis and anesthesia converged,
releasing surgery from its “constraining medieval chrysalis.”^7 Theodor
Billroth’s Berlin tutelage under Langenbeck witnessed two of the most
powerful surgeons ever to coexist, with Billroth advancing as his most
important protégé.
After a transitory stint in Zurich, Switzerland, Theodor Billroth
permanently settled in Vienna, becoming the most influential surgeon in
the world for a quarter of a century. From 1867 till the 1890s, Billroth’s
surgical amphitheater at the University of Vienna was the center of the