Theodor Billroth, the Great Surgeon, Scientist and Humanist

Abstract

Theodor Billroth was one of the most important surgeons in German speaking countries in the second half of the 19th century. In his personality he was joining the characteristics of an intuitive scientist, a well versed doctor, an inventive surgeon, an able pedagogue, and he was at the same time subtle musician, and first of all a great humanist. He introduced new techniques in the surgery of throat and stomack, which are with unessential changes still in use, and he wrote a brilliant surgery textbook that lasted for generations. He is important for the Slovene territory because he, as a Professor at the Medical Faculty at Vienna, educated also the Slovene doctors as Vinko Gregorič, Janez Plečnik, Alfred Valenta and others. Billroths successors at the Medical Faculty of Graz and Vienna were teachers of important Slovene surgeons: Edo Šlajmer, Franc Derganc, Peter Defrancesci and others at the beginning of the 20th century.