Wilhelm Fabry – Surgeon, Inventor, and Publicist
A Founder of Modern Surgery
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Dr. Wolfgang Antweiler, Wilhelm Fabry, Museum
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Images: © Stadtarchiv Hilden, Germany
Before academic education for medical practitioners became the norm, barber-surgeons treated wounds and performed minor operations as members of the tradesmen’s guild as late as the end of the 16th century. The surgeon Wilhelm Fabry, born in Hilden in 1560, Germany, was not content with this classification of his profession, however. With a thirst for life-long learning, meticulous observation, and continual involvement with the medical sciences, he advanced Surgeon of the City of Berne. Throughout his medical career he published a description of 600 cases in German and Latin, including methods of treatment. All his life, Wilhelm Fabry campaigned for more importance to be ascribed to the knowledge of anatomy in surgery. For all these reasons he is considered one of the founders of modern surgery.
- 1. Oil painting of Wilhelm Fabry by Albert Engstfeld 1935 after a copperplate engraving by Johann Theodor de Bry from 1612
- 2. Oil painting of Wilhelm Fabry, ca. 1620, attributed to Bartholomäus Sarburgh
- 3. Copperplate engraving of Wilhelm Fabry from the French edition of “Observationes” of 1641 according to Matthaeus Merian 1627
- 4. Orthopedic instrument used in the 16th century
- 5. Lifting of a depressed skull (Figure of a case Fabry has described)
- 6. Patient with eye tumor that was successfully removed (Figure of a case Fabry has described)
- 7. Preparing a patient for amputation of the lower leg. An assistant holds the patient, who is conscious. Fabry lived at the time of the Thirty Years’ War. Amputations due to comminuted fractures were the order of the day. To stop bleeding from blood vessels, he used a red-hot iron. Nowadays vessels are closed by heat induced by electricity. For gangrene amputations, Fabry introduced the ground-breaking method of operating on a healthy area and pulling the skin during surgery to enable proper closure of the stump afterward.
- 8. The amputation saw rests on the floor and herbs (stinging nettles) are heated in a pot to cauterize the stump. While the surgeon removes the limb, the patient, held by assistants, prays and is on the verge of losing consciousness.
- 9. Dr. Wolfgang Antweiler, Head of the Wilhelm Fabry Museum, Hilden, Germany. In 2010 Hilden celebrates the 450th birthday of its famous son with over 140 events and projects.
