[József Brandt, school-founding professor of surgery -- for the centennary of his death].

Abstract

The present article outlines the biography of the great Transylvanian surgeon József Brandt and appraises his professional work. After his medical training in Vienna and specialisation in surgery Brandt returned to Kolozsvár (now: Cluj/Romania) in 1867 to teach surgery and ophthalmology at the Medical-Surgical Institute of this town. As soon as the Royal Hungarian University in Kolozsvár was opened in 1872, Brandt was appointed as professor of the Department of Surgery. He was elected vice-dean of the medical school and rector of the university. More than 100 of his students specialized in surgery taught and mentored by the school-founding professor. Brandt retired in 1904. Brandt was the medical president of the first Kolozsvár Ambulance Service (1891) and the initiator, then director of the Red Cross Hospital in Kolozsvár (1895) where he worked until his death (1912). He is considered to be the first great surgeon in Transylvania, although he had to work under poor conditions, since the first modern surgical clinic was opened in the town only in 1899. Brandt was the first to perform successful ovariectomy in Transylvania (1869), and the second in Europe who performed nephrectomy (1873). He accepted Lister's antiseptic theory; in 1890 the university sent him to Berlin to study Koch's vaccine. The Appendix of the present article lists Brandt's assistants and students.