Max Joseph Oertel (20 March 1835 – 17 July 1897) was a German physician. He developed a system for the correction of respiratory troubles, and invented the laryngeal

stroboscope A stroboscope, also known as a strobe, is an instrument used to make a cyclically moving object appear to be slow-moving, or stationary. It consists of either a rotating disk with slots or holes or a lamp such as a flashtube which produces br ...

Biography

Oertel was a native of Dillingen. In 1863 he obtained his medical doctorate from the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

, where he spent the following four years as assistant to Karl von Pfeufer (1806-1869). In 1867 he received his habilitation, attaining a professorship at

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

in 1876. He is credited with being the first physician to use a laryngeal

for examination of the larynx. He combined a stroboscopic lamp with a laryngeal

mirror A mirror or looking glass is an object that reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the direction of the im ...

in order to study "vocal movements" in different registers. Application of the

strobe light A strobe light or stroboscopic lamp, commonly called a strobe, is a device used to produce regular flashes of light. It is one of a number of devices that can be used as a stroboscope. The word originated from the Ancient Greek ('), meaning ...

allowed him to view the vibrating

vocal cord In humans, vocal cords, also known as vocal folds or voice reeds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through vocalization. The size of vocal cords affects the pitch of voice. Open when breathing and vibrating for speec ...

s in slow motion, thus enabling detailed views of the larynx in an open or closed position. Oertel was the author of a number of written works on

cardiac The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to t ...

, circulatory and

obesity Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it may negatively affect health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's ...

disorders, and was an early advocate of the "terrain cure", a set of

therapeutic A therapy or medical treatment (often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx) is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. As a rule, each therapy has indications and contraindications. There are many different ...

exercises that involved graduated hiking and climbing. Oertel made contributions to the study of

diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...

by reproducing the disease in laboratory rabbits.

Selected writings

* ''Ueber den laryngologischen Unterricht'', 1878 – On laryngology lessons. * ''Respiratorische Therapie'', 1882 – Respiratory therapy. * ''Therapie der Kreislaufs-Störungen'', etc. 1884 – Therapy for circulation disorders. * ''Ueber Terrain-Curorte zur Behandlung von Kranken mit Kreislaufs-Störungen'', etc. 1886 – Terrain Cure to treat patients with circulation disorders. * ''Die pathogenese der epidemischen Diphtherie : nach ihrer histologischen Begründung'', 1887 – Pathogenesis of the diphtheria epidemic.World Cat Identities
(publications).

Notes

References

Stroboscopy in Medicine * {{DEFAULTSORT:Oertel, Max Joseph 1835 births 1897 deaths 19th-century German physicians Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich People from Dillingen an der Donau