Ferdinand Sauerbruch

Who was Ferdinand Sauerbruch?

Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch was a German surgeon.

Sauerbruch was born in Barmen, Germany. He studied medicine at the Philipps University of Marburg, the University of Greifswald, the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, and the University of Leipzig, from the last of which he graduated in 1902. He went to Breslau in 1903, where he developed the Sauerbruch chamber, a pressure chamber for operating on the open thorax, which he demonstrated in 1904. This invention was a breakthrough in thorax medicine and allowed heart and lung operations to take place at greatly reduced risk. As a battlefield surgeon during World War I, he developed several new types of limb prostheses, which for the first time enabled simple movements to be executed with the remaining muscle of the patient.

Sauerbruch worked at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich from 1918 to 1927 on surgical techniques and diets for treating tuberculosis. From 1928 to 1949, he was the head of the surgical department at the Charité in Berlin, attaining international fame for his innovative operations.