Kocher, Emil Theodor

Kocher, Emil Theodor (ā`mĭl tā`ōdôr kôkh`ər), 1841–1917, Swiss surgeon, M.D. Univ. of Bern, 1865. He was professor of surgery at Bern (1872–1911). For his work on the physiology, pathology, and surgery of the thyroid gland—which he was the first (1876) to excise in cases of goiter—he received the 1909 Nobel Prize in Medicine. He was a skilled surgeon and a pioneer in the application of asepsis. His works include a textbook on operative surgery (1894).

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Kocher, Emil Theodor

(born Aug. 25, 1841, Bern, Switz.—died July 27, 1917, Bern) Swiss surgeon. He was the first surgeon to remove the thyroid gland to treat goitre (1876). He later found that total removal could cause a state resembling cretinism, but that leaving part of the gland in place made this temporary. He introduced a surgical method for reducing shoulder dislocations, as well as many new surgical techniques, instruments, and appliances. A type of forceps and a gallbladder surgery incision named for him are still used. He adopted Joseph Lister's principles of complete asepsis in surgery. In 1909 he won a Nobel Prize.

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Kocher, Emil Theodor 

Born Aug. 25, 1841, in Bern; died there July 27, 1917. Swiss surgeon; one of the pioneers of modern aseptic abdominal surgery.

Kocher graduated from the medical faculty of the University of Bern in 1865, having been a student of T. T. Billroth and B. Langenbeck. From 1872 to 1911 he was director of the surgical clinic of the University of Bern.

Kocher elaborated the surgical access to all of the major joints of the human body. He proposed a number of new surgical instruments (hemostatic forceps, a grooved probe for goiter operations, a glass drainage tube, stomach forceps), which now bear his name. Kocher was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909 for his work on the surgical treatment of affections of the thyroid gland. He was an honorary member of many foreign scientific institutions and societies, including the N. I. Pirogov Russian Surgical Society.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Rukovodstvo k operativnoi khirurgii. St. Petersburg, 1898.
Uchenie o khirurgicheskikh operatsiiakh, parts 1-2. St. Petersburg, 1909-11.

REFERENCE

Rosnovskii, A. A. “Teodor Kokher (K 50-letiiu so dnia smerti).” Khirurgiia, 1968, no. 4.