Bernhard Bardenheuer

Who was Bernhard Bardenheuer?

Bernhard Bardenheuer was a German surgeon.

In 1864 he received his doctorate from Berlin, where he studied under Bernhard von Langenbeck. In 1865 he began work as an assistant to Karl Busch at the surgical clinic at the University of Bonn, afterwards relocating to Heidelberg, where he worked under ophthalmologist Otto Becker and surgeon Gustav Simon. During the Franco-Prussian War he served in a sick bay at a garrison in Heidelberg.

From 1872 he was a hospital surgeon in Köln, where in 1875 he introduced Listerian antisepsis. In 1884 he received the title of professor, even though he was not a member on any university's academic staff.

Bardenheuer specialized in genitourinary surgery, and in 1887 performed the first complete cystectomy. This operation involved a patient who was suffering from an advanced bladder tumour that affected both ureters. In 1909 he performed an autogenous bone graft of the mandible, a procedure that involved replacement of a mandibular condyle with a patient's 4th metatarsal. The "Bardenheuer incision" is named after him, which is a surgical incision used for operative treatment of mastitis. In German medical literature it is referred to as Bardenheuer-Schnitt or Bardenheuer-Bogenschnitt.