Martin Kirschner

Martin Kirschner was a German surgeon, born October 28, 1879 in Breslau, died 1942.

He attended the universities of Freiburg, Strassburg, Zurich and Munich. Following his promotion in Strassburg in 1904 he went to Berlin for postgraduate studies under Rudolf von Renvers (1854-1909). Between 1908 and 1910 he was at the university surgical clinic in Greifswald under Erwin Payr (1871-1947), then went to Königsberg to work with Payr and Paul Leopold Friedrich (1864-1916). He was appointed professor of surgery at Königsberg in 1916, and in 1927 accepted an invitation to move to the same chair in Tübingen. On March 18, 1924, Kirschner performed the first successful pulmonary artery embolectomy - Trendelenburg’s operation. He developed a new method for the making an artificial oesophagus and a method for the opening of the knee joint.