Adolf Aron Baginsky

Who was Adolf Aron Baginsky?

Adolf Aron Baginsky was a Jewish-German professor of diseases of children at Berlin University. He was an older brother to otorhinolaryngologist Benno Baginsky.

Baginsky was born in Ratibor, Prussian Silesia. At the completion of his high-school education at the gymnasium of his native town, he studied medicine in Berlin and Vienna. He was graduated from Berlin University in 1866, and in the same year accepted the position of private assistant to Ludwig Traube at the cholera hospital in Berlin; and in 1868 moved to Seehausen, near Magdeburg, where he began his career as a practising physician. Two years later, however, he accepted the post of chief physician in a military hospital in Nordhausen, and at the close of the Franco-Prussian war returned to Berlin, where he practised medicine, at the same time pursuing anew the studies which had been interrupted under the pressure of practical work in different hospitals. In 1881 Baginsky was appointed Privatdozent at the University of Berlin; and in 1892 promoted to an associate professorship at that institution.

Baginsky devoted himself to the treatment of children's diseases. He was director of the Kaiser und Kaiserin Friedrich Kinderkrankenhaus, which he founded in Berlin with the assistance of Rudolf Virchow in 1890. The Berlin Poliklinik für Kinderkrankheiten was also established in the metropolis through his efforts. He was also the founder and editor-in-chief of the Archiv für Kinderheilkunde in 1880, in collaboration with Monti and Herz in Stuttgart. His services were recognized by the Prussian and foreign governments, and he received many orders and decorations. His numerous contributions to the science of medicine include treatises on school-hygiene, "Handbuch der Schulhygiene", Stuttgart, 1883; and on the cure of children's diseases, "Lehrbuch der Kinderkrankheiten," Berlin, 1892; "Practische Beiträge zur Kinderheilkunde," Tübingen, 1880-84. All of these works have gone through several editions. Among his other writings, besides a great number of papers scattered through several medical journals, may be mentioned: "Pflege des Gesunden und Kranken Kindes", Stuttgart, 1885; "Das Leben des Weibes", ib. 1885; "Kost-und Haltekinderpflege in Berlin," Brunswick, 1886, etc.