Johann Schnitzler

Who was Johann Schnitzler?

Johann Schnitzler was an Austrian Jewish laryngologist who was a native of Nagykanizsa. He married Luise Markbreiter a daughter of the Viennese doctor Philipp Markbreiter, and they had three children. Arthur Schnitzler was a doctor and playwright; Julius Schnitzler was a surgeon; and Gisela.

In 1860 he earned his medical doctorate at the University of Vienna, where from 1863 to 1867 he worked as an assistant to Johann von Oppolzer. In 1880 he was appointed associate professor of laryngology at the University of Vienna, and later became director of its policlinic.

Schnitzler was a pioneer of modern laryngology, and author of numerous works on diseases of the throat and larynx. His best known written work was Klinischer Atlas der Laryngologie, which was published posthumously in 1895. In 1860 with Philipp Markbreiter, he founded the Wiener Medizinische Presse, a publication of which he remained as editor until 1886

He died in Vienna.

Schnitzler is credited with coining the term "spastic dysphonia" for a vocal disorder known today as spasmodic dysphonia.