Friedrich Lange (surgeon)

Friedrich Lange (1849 to 1927) was a German surgeon and supporter of charitable institutions, born on 20 March 1849 in Lonkorrek in the Province of Prussia and dead on 14 May 1927. The son of a local councillor and leaseholder, he studied medicine at the Albertus-Universität Königsberg, served as a hospital orderly in the Franco-Prussian War and worked as a surgeon in Königsberg and Kiel. After his marriage in 1891 he moved to New York City, where he was senior physician in the surgery department of a German hospital, then worked at Bellevue Hospital and finally as a consultant at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. After founding his own clinic he became known as a pioneer of German surgery in America and for introducing asepsis there. He returned to Germany in 1900 and gave a large donation to the Palästra Albertina in Königsberg, founded the district hospital for Kreis Löbau, established a hospice for the disabled in Bischofswerder, and founded a library and a Protestant church in Lonkorrek. He died of a stroke in a sanatorium in Potsdam-Babelsberg.