Ludwik Rydigier

In the German literature Ludwik Rydigier is also referred to as Ludwig Ritter von Ruediger. He studied in Greifswald, Berlin and Strassburg and obtained his medical doctorate at Greifswald in 1874. He received his surgical training under Bernhard Rudolf Konrad von Langenbeck (1810-1887), Georg Albert Luecke (1829-1894), Paul Friedrich Immanuel Vogt (1844-1885) and Carl Hueter (1838-1882) and was the latter's assistant. He became Privatdozent in Jena in 1870 and in 1880 settled in Culm an der Weichsel. Here he established a private surgical clinic and had a busy surgical practice.

In 1887 he was called to Krakau to succeed von Mikulicz. In 1897, following the establishment of a medical faculty in Lemberg, he assumed the first chair of surgery at that university. He founded Polish Surgical Society in 1889 and remained president of such till his death in 1920. He died in Lemberg in 1920.

Rydigier is particularly remembered for introducing the the technique of resection better known as Billroth's operation I.

We thank Rafal Kaczynski, MD, for information submitted.

• Eine neue Methode zur Behandlung der Pseudoarthrosen. Jena, 1878.
• Über Pylorusresektion. Sammlung klinischer Vorträge, Leipzig, 1882.
• Wie soll man chloroformieren? Sammlung klinischer Vorträge, Leipzig, 1893.
• Die Behandlung der Gelenkstuberkulose. Wien, 1895.