Friedrich Schauta

Friedrich Schauta (1849 to 1919) was an Austrian surgeon and gynecologist, born in Vienna. He took his medical doctorate at the University of Vienna in 1874, worked as an assistant in surgery and then in obstetrics and gynecology, and qualified as a specialist in 1881. He became a full professor at the University of Innsbruck in 1884, moved to Prague three years later, and in 1891 returned to Vienna to lead the first department of gynecology and obstetrics. Among his students and assistants were Ernst Wertheim, Josef von Halban and Bianca Bienenfeld. He is remembered for an operation for uterine cancer in which the uterus and ovaries are removed by way of the vagina, known as the Schauta-Stoeckel operation. His books include an 1885 outline of operative obstetrics and a 1906 textbook of gynecology, and with Rudolf Chrobak he planned a new gynecology department in Vienna. A street in Vienna carries his name.