Emil Theodor Kocher

Emil Theodor Kocher was a Swiss physician and medical researcher who lived from 1841 to 1917. He received the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the physiology, pathology and surgery of the thyroid, and he was the first Swiss citizen and the first surgeon to receive a Nobel Prize in Medicine. Among his accomplishments were the introduction and promotion of aseptic surgery and of scientific methods in surgery, and in his own operations he brought the mortality of thyroidectomy below one percent. His contemporaries considered him a pioneer and leader in the field of surgery.