Bernhard Heine

Bernhard Heine was a German physician and bone specialist, born in Schramberg in the Black Forest in 1800, who is remembered as the inventor of the osteotome, a tool for cutting bone. The son of a tanner, he was apprenticed as a boy to his uncle Johann Georg Heine in Würzburg as an orthopaedic mechanic, attended medical lectures there without formal enrolment, and later ran a department in his uncle's orthopaedic institute, becoming joint head of the institution with his cousin Joseph Heine in 1829. He presented the osteotome in 1830, and surgeons across Europe took it up; he travelled in Germany, France and Russia to demonstrate it. The University of Würzburg gave him an honorary doctorate in 1836 and an honorary professorship in 1838 although he never took a degree. His research on bone formation showed that the periosteum is decisive in bone regeneration and should be spared during operations. He died of tuberculosis in 1846, and his findings were published only in 1926.