Erich Lexer

Erich Lexer was a German surgeon and university lecturer, born in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1867 and active until his death in Berlin in 1937. He studied medicine at Würzburg, trained as an assistant under Friedrich Sigmund Merkel at Göttingen and Ernst von Bergmann in Berlin, and then held surgical chairs at Königsberg, Jena and Freiburg before succeeding Ferdinand Sauerbruch at the university clinic in Munich in 1928. Together with Eugen Holländer and Jacques Joseph he is regarded as a pioneer of plastic surgery. He is remembered for introducing techniques of plastic and cosmetic surgery, including early work on the forehead lift, a 1921 method for breast reshaping, and he was the first physician to advocate subcutaneous mastectomy for fibrocystic breast disease. His textbook of general surgery, first published in 1904, ran through many editions and was translated into English, and a clinic for aesthetic and plastic surgery in Freiburg is named after him.