Hermann Friedrich Kilian

Hermann Friedrich Kilian was the son of the physician Konrad Joseph Kilian (1771-1811). From 1810 to 1816 he attended the German Hauptschule in St. Petersburg and 1816-1817 studied in Wilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania), where Joseph Frank (1771-1842) was then teacher. 1817-1818 he was in Leipzig, the next year in Würzburg, and from January to March 1820 stayed in Göttingen. He then went via Holland to London and Edinburgh, where he was conferred doctor of medicine in 1820.

From England Kilian went to Paris and for the next years spent time in Strassburg, Munich, and Vienna for further education. In 1821 he returned to St. Petersburg, where he became professor of medicine, adjunct of chemistry, later also of physiology and pathology, at the medical faculty, and also served as a physician at the Artillery Hospital.

In 1828 Kilian went to Germany once more, concerning himself with writing while spending time in Mannheim, Heidelberg, and Berlin. The same year he accepted a call from Bonn as extraordinarius. In 1834 he was appointed ordinarius of obstetrics, a position he still held at the time of his death in 1863. In March, 1847, he was the first to apply ether anaesthesia in Germany.

In 1842 he rejected an invitation to assume directorship of an institute of midwifery that had been established under the protection of Grand Princess (Grossfürstin) Helene. In his position as clinical teacher he struggled in vain to establish a gynaecological clinic, which he considered urgently necessary. Kilian was an eager and competent teacher, and a prolific writer.

From 1847 to 1851 he was co-editor of the journal Rheinische Monatsschrift für praktische Aerzte, which appeared in Bonn.

• De nervi glossopharyngei origine. Doctoral dissertation; Edinburgh, 1820.
• Anatomische Untersuchungen über das neunte Hirnnervenpaar oder den Nervus glossopharyngeus. Nebst angehängten Bemerkungen über das anatomische Museum der Universität zu Strassburg ; Mitgetheilt von Dr. Hermann Friedrich Kilian.
  Pesth : Konrad Adolph Hartleben, 1822. 173 pages.
  Based on his doctoral dissertation of 1820.
• Die regelwidrigen Geburten und ihre Behandlung, von Dr. Samuel Meriman, aus dem Englischen etc. Mannheim, 1826.
• Ueber den Kreislauf des Blutes im Kinde, welches noch nicht geathmet hat.
  Karlsruhe : Müller, 1826. 27 + 220 pages.
• Die Universitäten Deutschlands in medicinisch-naturwissenschaftlicher Hinsicht betrachtet. Heidelberg, 1828.
• Beiträge zu einer genauren Kenntniss der allgemeinen Knochenerweichung der Frauen und ihres Einflusses auf das Becken. Bonn, 1829.
• Die Geburt des Kindeskopfes in derjeningen Scheitelstellung, welche man Hinterhauptslage zu nennen pflegt. Bonn, Habicht, 1830.
• Operationslehre für Geburtshelfer. 2 volumes. Bonn : Weber, 1834 and 1835.
  2nd edition, expanded and revised, Bonn : Weber, 1849.
• Die Geburtslehre : von Seiten der Wissenschaft und Kunst dargestellt.
  3 parts. Frankfurt am Main, Verlag von Franz Varrentrapp, 1839-1842.
• Das halisteretische Becken etc. Bonn, 1857.
• Geburtshülflicher Atlas. Düsseldorf, Verlag von Arnz & Co., 1835-1849.
• Erklärungen zum geburtshülflichen Atlas. Düsseldorf : Arnz, 1835. 48 pages.
• Armamentarium Lucinae novum oder Umfassende Sammlung von Abbildungen der in der Geburtshulfe gebrauchlichen alteren und neueren Instrumente.
  Bonn : Eduard Weber, 1856.
• Ode. Der Grossfürstin Maria Pawlowna, Kaiserlichen Hoheit, Erbgrossherzogin Von Sachsen-Weimar, u.s.w. . . . In Tiefster Ehrfurcht Gewidmet Von Hermann Friedrich Kilian.
  Petersburg : Iversen, 1816. Printed by M. C. Iversen.
  Hüldigungsgedicht auf Maria, Grossherzogin von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1786-1859), 1816.
• Ueber geburtshülfliches Studium. Bonn, 1846. 75 pages.
  
  Biographical:
• August Hirsch (1817-1894), publisher:
  Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärzte aller Zeiten und Völker.
  2nd edition. Berlin, Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1929.
  First published in 6 volumes 1884-1888. 3rd edition, München 1962.
• Jeremy M. Norman, editor:
  Morton’s Medical Bibliography. An annotated Check-list of Texts Illustrating the History of Medicine (Garrison and Morton).
  Fifth edition. Scolar Press, 1991.
• Hildegard Lentz:
  Der Bonner Geburtshelfer Hermann Friedrich Kilian.
  Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Hohen Medizinischen Fakultät der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn.
  Bonn, 1969. 557 pages.