Medical Guide

Widukind Lenz (1919–1995) was a distinguished German pediatrician, medical geneticist and dysmorphologist who was among the first to recognize the thalidomide syndrome in 1961 and alert the world to the dangers of limb and other malformations due to the mother’s exposure to this drug during pregnancy.

In the ensuing years, Lenz did much important work on the thalidomide syndrome[1]. He also did work of value in clinical genetics and cytogenetics. He described a number of malformation syndromes, several of which bear his name today.[2] He was an editor of the journal Human Genetics and published a textbook of medical genetics.

Lenz studied medicine from 1937 to 1943. He was a physician in Luftwaffe hospitals during World War II and then in a prisoner-of-war camp in England. After stints in biochemistry in Göttingen and medicine in Kiel, he became physician-in-chief of the Eppendorfer Kinderklinik in 1952 and was named to the chair of pediatrics at the University of Hamburg in 1961. Lenz became director of the Institute of Human Genetics in Münster in 1965.

Widukind Lenz was the son of Fritz Lenz, also a geneticist, but one of an entirely different stripe. Fritz Lenz espoused eugenics and influenced the racial hygiene policies of the Third Reich. Widukind Lenz died respected as an eminent physician and a humanitarian.

Johann Otto Leonhard Heubner (January 21, 1843 - October 17, 1926) was a German pediatrician who was a native of Mühltroff. He studied medicine at the University of Leipzig, and in 1867 became an assistant to Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich (1815-1877) at Leipzig. He later founded a children’s hospital and clinic in Leipzig, and in 1891 was appointed to the chair of pediatrics. In 1894 he moved to Berlin and became director of the children’s clinic and polyclinic at the Charité.

Heubner is considered one of the fathers of pediatric medicine. He also made several contributions concerning the treatment of infectious and gastrointestinal diseases. He was instrumental in improving infant mortality at the Charité, and introduced aseptic practices into the hospital environment. With Max Rubner (1854-1932) he investigated nutritional requirements for children, and established a fundamental nutritional quotient. With Eduard Heinrich Henoch (1820-1910), he was among the first to use an antitoxin for diphtheria that had recently been developed by Emil von Behring (1854-1917).

He provided an early description of syphilitic endarteritis obliterans, which is sometimes referred to as Heubner’s disease. His name is also lent to Heubner’s artery, a cerebral artery that typically originates from the junction of the A 1 and A 2 segments of the anterior cerebral artery (ACA). Heubner also made contributions in the study of cerebrospinal meningitis.

In 1999 the Otto Heubner Centrum für Kinder- und Jugendmedizin was founded at the University Hospital of the Charité-Berlin as a care center for young children and adolescents.

Among his works may be mentioned:
“Klinik der Unterleibskrankheiten,” 3 vols., Berlin, 1852-58, 3d ed. 1863;
“Beiträge zur Kinderheilkunde,” two parts, ib. 1861-68;
“Vorlesungen über Kinderkrankheiten,” ib. 1881, 10th ed. 1899.
translated from the English of Budd “Die Krankheiten der Leber,” Berlin, 1846,
edited Karl Friedrich Canstatt’s “Handbuch der Medizinischen Klinik,” Erlangen, 1854-56
West’s “Pathologie und Therapie der Kinderkrankheiten,” 4th ed., Berlin, 1865.

After taking the degree of M.D. at Berlin (1843), he began to practise as a specialist in diseases of children. Until 1850 he was assistant at the children’s dispensary of the university. In that year he became privat-docent; in 1858, assistant professor. In 1872 Henoch became director of the hospital and dispensary of the department of pediatrics at the Charité. In 1893 he resigned that position, received the title of “Medicinalrath”, and lived in retirement at Merano until 1898, when he removed to Dresden.

In 1868 he described the association of colic, bloody diarrhea, painful joints, and rash in the condition, previously described by his former medical school teacher Johann Lukas Schönlein, of the allergic non-thrombopenic purpural rash that is known today as Henoch-Schönlein purpura.[1]

Eduard Heinrich Henoch (June 16, 1820, Berlin – August 26, 1910) was a German physician. He taught at the Berlin University (1868–1894).

Roseolovirus refers to both Human Herpesvirus Six and Seven, both members of the betaherpesviridae subfamily of herpesvirus. They can both cause the childhood disease of roseola.

Exanthem subitum (meaning sudden rash), also referred to as roseola infantum (or rose rash of infants), sixth disease (as the sixth rash-causing childhood disease) and (confusingly) baby measles, or three day fever, is a benign disease of children, generally under two years old, whose manifestations are usually limited to a transient rash (”exanthem”) that occurs following a fever of about three day’s duration.

Until recently, its origin was unknown, but it is now known to be caused by two human herpesviruses, HHV-6 (Human Herpesvirus Six) and HHV-7, which are sometimes referred to collectively as Roseolovirus. Current research indicates that most babies infected with the HHV-6 virus had the virus integrated into their chromosomes during fetal development, from either the mother or the father.[1]

1906 — Awarded title of k. k. Hofrat (Advisor to the Royal Court)

Theodor Escherich was awarded a doctorate in medicine in 1881. Early on he devoted himself to the study of bacteriology. He discovered Escherichia coli in 1885

In 1890 Escherich became Professor of Pediatrics at the Karl-Franz University of Graz and in 1894 only the third ordentliche Professor (full professor) in this area of medicine. In 1902 he became Professor of Pediatrics in Vienna, where he directed the St.-Anna-Kinderspital (~ St. Anna Children’s Hospital).

Escherich became renowned in 1903 when he founded the “Säuglingsschutz” (~ Infant Defence Society) and started a high profile campaign for breastfeeding.

Theodor Escherich (29 November 1857 – 15 February 1911) was a German-Austrian pediatrician and a professor at universities in Munich, Graz, and Vienna. He discovered the bacterium Escherichia coli, which was named after him in 1919, and determined its properties. He was born in Ansbach, Kingdom of Bavaria, and he died in Vienna, Austria-Hungary.