Wilhelm Fabry (also William Fabry, Guilelmus Fabricius Hildanus, or Fabricius von Hilden) (25 June 1560 − 15 February 1634), often called the "Father of German surgery", was the first educated and scientific German surgeon. He is one of the most prominent scholars in the iatromechanics school and author of 20 medical books. His , published posthumously in 1641, is the best collection of case records of the century and gives clear insight into the variety and methods of his surgical practice. He developed novel surgical techniques and new surgical instruments. He also wrote a notable

treatise A treatise is a Formality, formal and systematic written discourse on some subject concerned with investigating or exposing the main principles of the subject and its conclusions."mwod:treatise, Treatise." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Acc ...

on burns. Fabry was born in

Hilden Hilden () is a town in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is situated in the Mettmann (district), District of Mettmann, west of Solingen and east of Düsseldorf on the right side of the Rhine. It is a middle sized industrial town ...

. In 1579, he became () in

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of the extraordinary court surgeon Cosmas Slot. He developed a device for operating eye tumours. On 25 July 1587, he married Marie Colinet (or ''Fabry''), daughter of Eustache Colinet, a Genevese printer. She was a

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midwife–surgeon who improved the techniques of

cesarean section Caesarean section, also known as C-section, cesarean, or caesarean delivery, is the surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen. It is often performed because vaginal delivery would ...

delivery. She helped her husband in his surgical practice and was the first (in 1624) to use a magnet to extract metal from a patient's eye (a technique still in use today). Fabry wrote a detailed description of the procedure in his ''Centuriae'' and, although he explicitly mentioned his wife as having invented it, was given credit for the discovery. From 1602 to 1615, Fabry was a city surgeon in

Payerne, Switzerland Payerne (; ) is a municipality in the Swiss canton of Vaud. It was the seat of the district of Payerne, and is now part of the district of Broye-Vully. The German name ''Peterlingen'' for the town is out of use. History The earliest traces of ...

, and

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. He was then made city surgeon () of

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by appointment of the city council, a role he held until the year of his death. The city of Bern, where he died, named a street after him (''Hildanus''strasse), using one of the Latin versions of his name. His birth town named the city museum (featuring surgical instruments and the like) after him, honoured him with a bronze bust in the market place, and named streets after himself and after his wife.

Works

* ''De Dysenteria : Liber unus: In quo hujus Morbi Causae, Signa, Prognostica, & Praeservatio continentur: Item, quomodo Symptomata, quae huic Morbo supervenire solent, sint removenda''. de Bry / Galler, Oppenheimii 161
Digital edition
by the

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References

Resources

* Georg Becker, Wilhelm Fabry von Hilden (Niederbergische Beiträge vol. 6, ed. Heinrich Strangmeier), Wuppertal 1957 (German) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fabry, Wilhelm 1560 births 1634 deaths German surgeons 16th-century German physicians 17th-century German physicians 16th-century surgeons 17th-century surgeons 17th-century German writers 17th-century German male writers