Oskar Hirsch

Oskar Hirsch (1877 to 1965) was an Austrian otolaryngologist who became known as a pioneer of the transsphenoidal approach to surgery on the pituitary gland, in which the surgeon reaches the gland through the nose. Born in Přerov in Moravia, now part of the Czech Republic, he moved to Vienna in 1897, took his medical degree in 1902 and trained at the Vienna General Hospital, including in otorhinolaryngology, where he studied the sphenoid sinuses of autopsy specimens. Building on techniques of his mentor Markus Hajek, he presented his own pituitary operation at a Viennese medical meeting in March 1909 and met criticism, including from Hajek. In 1911 he demonstrated the procedure to the American surgeon Harvey Cushing, who adapted it for more than 200 patients. Hirsch also described an approach through the maxillary sinus for eye surgery in Graves disease exophthalmos in 1930. He left Austria for the United States in 1938, settled in Boston, operated there until his retirement in 1963 and died in 1965.