Franz Hamburger

Franz Hamburger (1874 to 1954) was an Austrian medical doctor and university lecturer who specialised in pediatrics. Born in Pitten, he studied medicine at Heidelberg, Munich and Graz, qualified as a doctor in 1898, worked as a ship's doctor and then in Heidelberg, Vienna and Graz, and trained as a pediatrician, graduating in 1900 with Theodor Escherich. He completed his habilitation in 1906, served in Serbia and Italy in the First World War, became a full professor of pediatrics at the University of Graz in 1916, and after the death of Clemens von Pirquet in 1930 was called to the University of Vienna as Director of its Pediatric Clinic. Hans Asperger was one of his staff and later spoke of his teaching with great admiration. Hamburger joined the Nazi Party in 1934, while it was still banned in Austria, retired in 1944 and then managed the children's ward at the hospital in Vöcklabruck, where he died. His textbook Kinderheilkunde appeared in 1920.