Johannes Friedrich August von Esmarch (9 January 1823 – 23 February 1908) was a German surgeon. He developed the Esmarch bandage and founded the ''Deutscher Samariter-Verein'', the predecessor of the '' Deutscher Samariter-Bund''.

Life

Esmarch was born in Tönning, Schleswig-Holstein. He studied at

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...

and

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

, and in 1846 became Bernhard Rudolf Konrad von Langenbeck's assistant at the Kiel surgical hospital. He served in the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848 as junior surgeon, and this directed his attention to the subject of military surgery. He was taken prisoner, but afterwards exchanged, and was then appointed as surgeon to a

field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile A ...

. During the truce of 1849 he qualified as ''

Privatdocent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualific ...

'' at Kiel, but on the fresh outbreak of war he returned to the troops and was promoted to the rank of senior surgeon. In 1854 Esmarch became director of the surgical clinic at Kiel, and in 1857 head of the general hospital and professor at the

University of Kiel Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in ...

. During the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1864, Esmarch rendered good service to the field hospitals of Flensburg, Sundewitt and Kiel. In 1866 he was called to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

as member of the hospital commission, and also to take the superintendence of the surgical work in the hospitals there. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, he was appointed surgeon-general to the army, and afterwards consulting surgeon at the great military hospital near Berlin. In 1872 Esmarch married Princess Caroline Christiane Auguste Emilie Henriette Elisabeth of

Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg The House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg () was a branch of the dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg of the House of Oldenburg. The line descended from Alexander, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg. Like all of the secondary ...

(1833–1917), aunt of Empress Augusta Viktoria. In 1887 a patent of nobility was conferred on Esmarch. He died at Kiel.

Influence

Esmarch was one of the greatest authorities on hospital management and military surgery. His ''Handbuch der kriegschirurgischen Technik'' was written for a prize offered by the empress Augusta, on the occasion of the Vienna Exhibition of 1877, for the best handbook for the battlefield of surgical appliances and operations. This book is illustrated by admirable diagrams, showing the different methods of bandaging and dressing, as well as the surgical operations as they occur on the battlefield. Esmarch himself invented an apparatus, which bears his name, for keeping a limb nearly bloodless during amputation. No part of Esmarch's work is more widely known than that which deals with

First Aid First aid is the first and immediate assistance given to any person with either a minor or serious illness or injury, with care provided to preserve life, prevent the condition from worsening, or to promote recovery. It includes initial in ...

, his ''First Aid on the Battlefield'' and ''First Aid to the Injured'' being popular manuals on the subject. The latter is the substance of a course of lectures delivered by him in 1881 to a Samaritan School, the first of the kind in Germany, founded by Esmarch in 1881, in imitation of the

St John Ambulance St John Ambulance is the name of a number of affiliated organisations in different countries which teach and provide first aid and emergency medical services, and are primarily staffed by volunteers. The associations are overseen by the internat ...

classes which had been organized in England in 1878. These lectures were very generally adopted as a manual for first aid students, edition after edition having been called for, and they have been translated into numerous languages, the English version being the work of HRH Princess Christian. No ambulance course would be complete without a demonstration of the Esmarch bandage. It is a three-sided piece of linen or cotton, of which the base measures 4 feet and the sides 2 feet 10 inches. It can be used folded or open, and applied in thirty-two different ways. It answers every purpose for temporary dressing and field-work, while its great recommendation is that the means for making it are always at hand. In 1857 Esmarch wrote an article together with the psychiatrist Peter Willers Jessen. They had discovered the connection between syphilis and general paralysis of the insane. Esmarch also observed a link between syphilis and cancer in 1877.

References

External links

Große Forscher von der Förde
{{DEFAULTSORT:Esmarch, Friedrich von 1823 births 1908 deaths People from Tönning German surgeons 19th-century German inventors Physicians from Schleswig-Holstein German military personnel of the Franco-Prussian War German medical researchers People from the Duchy of Schleswig University of Göttingen alumni University of Kiel alumni University of Kiel faculty Prussian generals German military doctors