Carl Otto von Eicken

Carl Otto von Eicken was a German otorhinolaryngologist, born in Mülheim an der Ruhr on 31 December 1873 and dying in Heilbronn on 29 June 1960. He studied medicine at Kiel, Geneva, Munich, Berlin and Heidelberg, where he was an assistant to the surgeon Vincenz Czerny. He qualified as a university lecturer in laryngology and rhinology at Freiburg in 1903 and in otology in 1909, became a full professor at Giessen in 1911 and headed the newly built ear, nose and throat clinic there, and served as university rector in 1920 and 1921. In 1922 he succeeded his former teacher Gustav Killian at the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin and held a professorship there until 1950. He is known for developing methods of examining the throat and pharynx, and Eicken's method eases hypopharyngoscopy by pulling the cricoid cartilage forward with a laryngeal probe. He removed a polyp from the left vocal cord of Adolf Hitler in May 1935 and again in November 1944. He wrote over one hundred medical works, including an atlas of ear, nose and throat diseases with Alfred Schulz van Treeck, published in 1940.