Walter Albert Ferdinand Brunn (2 September 1876, in

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

– 21 December 1952, in

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 ...

) was a German surgeon and historian of medicine. He studied medicine at the universities of

and

Rostock Rostock (), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (german: link=no, Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock), is the largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the state, c ...

, where he was a student of

Carl Garré Carl Alois Philipp Garrè (12 December 1857, Ragaz – 6 March 1928) was a Swiss surgeon. He proved that Staphylococcus aureus causes carbuncles and boils by experimenting on himself and had one condition named after himself, Garre's sclerosi ...

. From 1900 to 1905 he served as a surgical assistant in the university clinics at

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 ...

and

Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...

, and afterwards opened a private surgical practice in Rostock. As a hospital physician during World War I, he lost an arm as the result of a septic infection, thus ending his career as a surgeon.Prof. Dr. med. Walter Albert Ferdinand Brunn
Catalogus Professorum Lipsiensium In 1919 he obtained his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

with a thesis on the medieval surgeon

Guy de Chauliac Guy de Chauliac (), also called Guido or Guigo de Cauliaco ( 1300 – 25 July 1368), was a French physician and surgeon who wrote a lengthy and influential treatise on surgery in Latin, titled '' Chirurgia Magna''. It was translated into many othe ...

, and in 1924 became an associate professor at the University of Rostock. From 1934 to 1950 he was a professor of the history of medicine at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

.Brunn, Walter von
in Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium From 1934 to 1950 he was director of the ''Karl Sudhoff-Institut für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften'' (

Karl Sudhoff Karl Sudhoff (26 November 1853, Frankfurt am Main – 8 October 1938, Salzwedel) was a German historian of medicine, helping establish that field as a legitimate discipline for research and teaching within faculties of medicine. Sudhoff taught f ...

Institute for the History of Medicine and Natural Sciences) at Leipzig. From 1947 to 1951 he was vice-president of the

Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded ...

Selected works

* ''Von den Gilden der Barbiere und Chirurgen in den Hansestädten'', 1921 – On the guilds of barbers and surgeons in the

Hanseatic The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label=German language, Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Norther ...

towns. * ''Kurze Geschichte der Chirurgie'', 1928 – Brief history of surgery. * ''Paracelsus und seine Schwindsuchtlehre'', 1941 –

Paracelsus Paracelsus (; ; 1493 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance. He w ...

and

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

teaching. * ''Medizinische Zeitschriften im neunzehnten Jahrhundert'' (posthumous, 1963) – Medical journals in the nineteenth century.Braungart - Busta / edited by Lutz Hagestedt
Deutsche Literatur-Lexicon

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brunn, Walter von 1876 births 1952 deaths Physicians from Göttingen Academic staff of the University of Rostock Academic staff of Leipzig University German surgeons German medical historians