Maximilian Carl-Friedrich Nitze (September 18, 1848 – February 23, 1906) was a German

urologist Urology (from Greek οὖρον ''ouron'' "urine" and ''-logia'' "study of"), also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of the urinary-tract system and the reproductive organ ...

born in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. He studied medicine at the Universities of

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg is ...

and

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

. In 1874 he earned his doctorate, and subsequently became a medical assistant at the city hospital in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

. During the 1880s, Nitze founded a private urology hospital in Berlin. He later became a professor of urology at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

. Nitze specialized in research of

kidney The kidneys are two reddish-brown bean-shaped organs found in vertebrates. They are located on the left and right in the retroperitoneal space, and in adult humans are about in length. They receive blood from the paired renal arteries; blood ...

disorders and other urological problems. Along with Viennese instrument maker Joseph Leiter (1830–1892), he is credited with the invention of the modern

cystoscope Cystoscopy is endoscopy of the urinary bladder via the urethra. It is carried out with a cystoscope. The urethra is the tube that carries urine from the bladder to the outside of the body. The cystoscope has lenses like a telescope or microscope ...

; a device used in diagnostics of the

bladder The urinary bladder, or simply bladder, is a hollow organ in humans and other vertebrates that stores urine from the kidneys before disposal by urination. In humans the bladder is a distensible organ that sits on the pelvic floor. Urine enters ...

. The Nitze–Leiter cystoscope was first publicly demonstrated in 1879. Functionally, it used an electrically heated

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...

wire for illumination, a cooling system of flowing ice-water, and telescopic lenses for visualization. Invention of the

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxida ...

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...

allowed further improvements to the cystoscope; in 1887 Nitze constructed an apparatus that no longer needed a cooling-system. He is also credited with producing the first

endoscopic An endoscopy is a procedure used in medicine to look inside the body. The endoscopy procedure uses an endoscope to examine the interior of a hollow organ or cavity of the body. Unlike many other medical imaging techniques, endoscopes are insert ...

photographs. In 1901 the first endoscope-guided laparoscopy of a dog was performed by German physician

Georg Kelling Georg Kelling (7 July 1866 – 14 February 1945) was a German internist and surgeon who was a laparoscopy pioneer and in 1901 performed the first laparoscopic surgery on a dog. He studied medicine at the Universities of Leipzig and Berlin. H ...

(1866–1945). In 1910

Hans Christian Jacobaeus Hans Christian Jacobaeus (29 May 1879 – 29 October 1937) was a Swedish internist born in Skarhult. In 1916 he became a professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. From 1925 until his death in 1937, he was a member of the Nobel P ...

published an account of two cases in which he performed thoracoscopic explorations of the pleural cavity.European Respiratory Journal
The centenary of medical thoracoscopy Today the Maximilian Nitze Medal is awarded by the German Society of Urology for special contributions in the field of urology.

Written works

* ''Lehrbuch der Kystoskopie'',

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

1889 (2. Auflage 1907) (Handbook on cystoscopy). * ''Kystophotographischer Atlas'', Wiesbaden 1894. (Cystoscopic photography)

References

* ''This article is based on a translation of an equivalent article at the

German Wikipedia The German Wikipedia (german: Deutschsprachige Wikipedia) is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia. Founded on March 16, 2001, it is the second-oldest Wikipedia (after the English Wikipedia), ...

''.
Advent of Modern Endoscopy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nitze, Maximilian German urologists 1848 births 1906 deaths Physicians from Berlin Humboldt University of Berlin faculty