Joachim Friedrich Henckel

Joachim Friedrich Henckel was a Prussian surgeon, born on 4 March 1712 in Preussisch Holland and died on 1 July 1779. He worked at the Charité hospital in Berlin and published Medical and Surgical Observations in 1744. He is best known for an operation in 1769, when he carried out the first caesarean section in which the incision was made along the linea alba on a living woman. The child survived, although the mother later died, probably of peritonitis. The case drew such attention that King Frederick II named Henckel professor of surgery and a Court Counselor. From 1773 until his death in 1779 he served as director of the Charité. His career shows how a single widely noticed operation could raise a hospital surgeon to high rank in eighteenth century Prussia.