said, while listening to his favorite symphony, the Beethoven Eroica.
In 1869 and 1883 he published handbooks on first aid and founded the Samaritan’s schools, based on the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade, to teach first aid throughout Germany.
When I look back on my career as a surgeon I can say with truth that many and many are the times I have deplored that so very few people know how to render the first aid to those who have suddenly met with some injury. This specially applies to the field of battle; of the thousands who have flocked thither in their desire to help, so few have understood how to render aid.
His program of education has improved the situation.
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Who’s Who in Orthopedics
Peter Gordon Lawrence ESSEX-LOPRESTI
1916–1951
Mr. Essex-Lopresti was trained at the London Hospital and qualified in 1937. After several res- ident appointments, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps serving as a surgical specialist in an airborne division. As a result of this experi- ence, he was able to give a comprehensive report on the injuries associated with 20,777 parachute jumps made by men in the Sixth British Airborne Division, one of the first such reports. A paper on the open wound in trauma followed. At the end of World War II, he went back to the Birmingham Accident Hospital where he reorganized the post- graduate training program. He was recognized as
Johann Friedrich August Von ESMARCH
1823–1908
Esmarch was a military surgeon who was con- cerned with blood loss and first aid.
He was born at Tonning, Schleswig-Holstein, at a time when the province was struggling for freedom from Denmark. The son of a doctor, he studied at Gottingen and Kiel, becoming an assistant to Langenbeck.
It was during the insurrection against Denmark in 1848–1850 that he began surgery; he also organized the resistance movement. In 1857 he became Professor of Surgery at Kiel, succeeding Stromeyer, the tenotomist, and marrying his daughter. He was engaged in military surgery again between 1866 and 1871 in the wars with Austria and France; in 1871 he became surgeon General of the army. Soon after, in 1873, he married again—this time a Princess of Schleswig- Holstein. In the same year he published his description of the bandage that bears his name.
He used this to produce a clear bloodless field for surgery and to diminish the blood loss during amputations in particular. His contributions to medicine were mainly derived from his battlefield experiences.
