Hermann Kümmell
| Born | 1852 |
| Died | 1937 |
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Biography of Hermann Kümmell
Hermann Kümmell studied in Marburg, Würzburg, Strassburg and Berlin, receiving his doctorate at Berlin in 1875. He then worked as asistant physician in the internal and surgical department at the Berlin city hospital Friedrichshain under professor Max Schede (1844-1902). When Schede moved to Hamburg in 1882, Kümmell followed him.
From 1883 to 1896 Kümmell was head physician at the surgical department of the Maria-Krankenhaus Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg. From 1895 he succeeded Max Schede (1844-1902), becoming surgeon-in-chief of the new general hospital - the Allgemeines Krankenhaus St. Georg in Hamburg-Eppendorf.
In 1907 Kümmell became titular professor, and in 1919 became the first ordentlicher professor of surgery at the newly established University of Hamburg.
Kümmell is chiefly remembered for a considerable number of publications on surgery. Besides the disease that bears his nsame, he also concerned himself with the treatment of fractures, bone implants and diseases of the spinal column. Besides this he investigated disturbances of the Kidney and bladder, gallstone, epilepsy and diseases of the chest. He was one of the first surgeons to recommend removal of the appendix in cases of recurrent appendicitis. As early as in 1886 he introduced the first choledochotomy (Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, 1890, 16: 237.) With Eduard Schiff (1849-1913) he used X-rays to successfully treat skin lupus.
