Abstract: FRI-12
Sources of Funding: non

Introduction

Outlining history from a patient's view is a major theme in the social and cultural history of medicine. Since Porters work in the 1980th "patients view meets the clinical gaze" (Condrau 2012). Within the research on the history of urology there could be traced besides Margarethe Kleb (1820-1878), a washer women, (nephrectomy), and Theodor Baum of Cologne (1830-1886) (first indicated cystectomy) only some famous patients who had written ego-documents as Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), Chief Secretary to the Admiralty of Great Britain and his diaries or the report on Jan de Doot by Nicholaes Tulp (1593 - 1674). Other famous urologic patients were Napoleon III. (1808-1873) or Michel de Montainge (1533 -1592) whose legacy should not be lost (Moran, 2013)._x000D_ Mary Helen Schirm (1840-1871) nee Williams from Savannah (Georgia) was suffering from kidney stones for years. She had married an immigrant from Germany, Wilhelm Philip Schirm (1836-1896) from Scheuern near Nassau/Lahn, who came to the US in 1857 and served during the Civil War in the 3rd Georgia battalion of the Confedered Army. Two pregnancies of Mary were interrupted due to renal colics._x000D_ Therefore she sought urgent help. At that time giving birth to a son and heier was a major "task" of a married women. With the popularized information about first successfull nephrectomy from the department of Gustav Simon (1824-1876) from Heidelberg, about 80 km away form her husbands former home, she traveld to Germany. The operation took place on August 8th 1871 but the patient died about one month later and was buried in Obernhof/Lahn where the German relatives were living._x000D_

Methods

An analysis of the local and scientific reports and primary sources on the patient, the operation and the person of Gustav Simon will be combined with a social analysis a the medical system in the last quarter of the 19th century in Germany and the US.

Results

The first indicated operations proved that it is possible to remove one kidney in a human being and that a patient can survive with only one kidney. However, nephrectomy slowly gained acceptance due to a lethality rate about 40% at the early years. At the turn to the 20th century operation became the major corner stone to define the new specialty of urology besides endoscopy.

Conclusions

The study is intended to suggest the dimensions international communication had on the differentiating specialty of urology. In its general perspective, the study tries to understand the dimension of a history of patients view in the history of urology especially in Germany, Europe and the US.

Funding

non