Leopold Ritter von Dittel

Leopold Ritter von Dittel (1815 to 1898) was an Austrian urologist, born in Fulnek, a community now in the Czech Republic. He received his medical doctorate from the University of Vienna in 1840 and worked as a physician in Trentschin-Teplitz as a young man. From 1853 to 1857 he was an assistant to Johann von Dumreicher and a surgical assistant at the university hospital in Vienna, later becoming surgeon-in-chief of the Allgemeines Krankenhaus; in 1865 he gained the title of associate professor. He is credited with a number of innovative diagnostic and surgical practices in genitourinary medicine, including early diagnostic work with the cystoscope, an instrument recently invented by Maximilian Nitze. The Dittel-Forgue-Legueu operation, a procedure for closing vesicovaginal fistulae, is named for him together with Felix Legueu and Émile Forgue, and a Dittel urethral sound, used to treat narrowing of the urethra, also bears his name. His writings cover clubfoot, scoliosis, hip dislocation, disorders of the male genitalia, prostate enlargement, urethral strictures, bladder stones and kidney calculus.