Ernst von Bergmann

Ernst Gustav Benjamin von Bergmann (1836 to 1907) was a Baltic German surgeon born in Riga. He is credited as the first physician to introduce heat sterilization of surgical instruments, a foundational advance in aseptic surgery that significantly reduced surgical infection rates. He held professorships at Dorpat, Wurzburg and finally Berlin, and also pioneered the hydrocelectomy procedure, improved appendectomy technique, and performed an early successful operation for esophageal diverticulum.