Johannes Friedrich August von Esmarch
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
surgeon
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
. He developed the Esmarch bandage
Esmarch bandage
Esmarch bandage in its modern form is a narrow hard rubber tourniquet with a chain fastener that is used to control bleeding by applying it around a limb in such a way that blood is expelled from it. This prevents the flow of blood to or from the distal area, making it easier to operate...
and founded the Deutscher Samariter-Verein, the predecessor of the Deutscher Samariter-Bund.
Life
Esmarch was born in TönningTönning
Tönning is a town in the district of Nordfriesland in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. During the Great Northern War, Tönning was besieged twice.-Geography:...
, Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
. He studied at Kiel
University of Kiel
The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...
and Göttingen, 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
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
. He was taken prisoner, but afterwards exchanged, and was then appointed as surgeon to a field hospital
Field hospital
A field hospital is a large mobile medical unit that temporarily takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent hospital facilities...
. During the truce of 1849 he qualified as Privatdocent 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
University of Kiel
The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...
. During the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1864, Esmarch rendered good service to the field hospitals of Flensburg
Flensburg
Flensburg is an independent town in the north of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Flensburg is the centre of the region of Southern Schleswig...
, Sundewitt and Kiel. In 1866 he was called to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
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
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
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 (1833–1917), aunt of Empress Augusta Viktoria
Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein
Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein was the last German Empress and Queen of Prussia. Her full German name was Auguste Victoria Friederike Luise Feodora Jenny von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.She was the eldest daughter of Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein and Princess...
. 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 amputationAmputation
Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma, prolonged constriction, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventative surgery for...
.
No part of Esmarch's work is more widely known than that which deals with First Aid
First aid
First aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by non-expert, but trained personnel to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care...
, 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
Samaritan
The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...
School, the first of the kind in Germany, founded by Esmarch in 1881, in imitation of the St John Ambulance 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
Esmarch bandage
Esmarch bandage in its modern form is a narrow hard rubber tourniquet with a chain fastener that is used to control bleeding by applying it around a limb in such a way that blood is expelled from it. This prevents the flow of blood to or from the distal area, making it easier to operate...
. 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.