Education

He attended school in Greifswald where he obtained his Abitur degree in 1848. Billroth was an indifferent student, and spent more time practicing piano than studying. Torn between a career as a musician or as a physician, he acceded to his mother's wishes and enrolled himself at the University of Greifswald to study medicine, but gave up the whole of his first term to the study of music; Professor Wilhelm Baum, however, took him with him to Gö ttingen, and his medical career was fixed. He then followed Professor Baum to the University of Gö ttingen, and completed his medical doctorate at the Frederick William University of Berlin in 1852. Along with Rudolph Wagner (1805–1864) and Georg Meissner (1829–1905), Billroth went to Trieste to study the torpedo fish.

Billroth worked as a doctor from 1853-1860 at the Charité in Berlin. In Berlin he was also apprenticed to Carl Langenbuch. From 1860–1867 he was Professor at the University of Zurich and director of the surgical hospital and clinic in Zurich. While in Zurich, Billroth published his classic textbook Die allgemeine chirurgische Pathologie und Therapie (General Surgical Pathology and Therapy) (1863).

At the same time he introduced the concept of audits, publishing all results, good and bad, which automatically resulted in honest discussion on morbidity, mortality, and techniques – with resultant improvements in patient selection. He was appointed professor of surgery at the University of Vienna in 1867 and practiced surgery as chief of the Second Surgical Clinic at the Allgemeine Krankenhaus (Vienna General Hospital).

He was directly responsible for a number of landmarks in surgery, including the first esophagectomy (1871), the first laryngectomy (1873), and most famously, the first successful gastrectomy (1881) for gastric cancer, after many ill-fated attempts. Legend has it that Billroth was nearly stoned to death in the streets of Vienna when his first gastrectomy patient died after the procedure.

Billroth was instrumental in establishing the first modern school of thought in surgery. Among his disciples were luminaries such as Alexander von Winiwarter, Jan Mikulicz-Radecki and John B. Murphy. William Halsted's pioneer surgical residency program was greatly influenced by Billroth's own methods of surgical education.

Fig no 2 Theodor Billroth teaching his students

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