Curt Schimmelbusch

Curt Schimmelbusch (1860 to 1895) was a German physician and pathologist, born in Groß-Nogath in West Prussia, who trained in medicine at Würzburg, Göttingen, Berlin and Halle and took his medical degree at Halle in 1886. He is remembered for two practical advances in surgery. In 1890 he designed a metal mask over which gauze was stretched so that ether or chloroform could be dripped on to it without touching the patient's skin, and a form of this mask stayed in use in German-speaking countries into the 1950s. Working for the Berlin surgeon Ernst von Bergmann, he also recorded and formalised the methods of sterilisation and disinfection used in the clinic, publishing in 1892 his guide to the aseptic treatment of wounds, which was translated into almost every European language. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 34.