ing professor of surgery also in 1787. He was a brilliant anatomist, whose extraordinary skills as an artist enabled him to illustrate his own works.
He traveled widely in Europe and spoke several languages fluently. Although he is remembered for his anatomic eponyms (e.g. Scarpa’s fascia, Scarpa’s triangle), he should be remembered also as an outstanding surgeon for his operations for vascular disease. In Italy, he is considered to be the father of ophthalmology.
Scarpa’s A Memoir on the Congenital Club Feet of Children and of the Mode of Correcting that Deformity showed his many-sided character.
It combines a thorough review of the foreign literature with a description of the anatomy of the condition and an exposition of a successful method of treatment. It is worth noting that Scarpa’s conception of the underlying pathology of congenital club foot was the beginning of our understanding of this deformity.
Joints. Before that time, his work and career had led him to several prestigious appointments, including director of the International Reference Center for Histo-Pathologic Diagnosis of Bone Tumors and Allied Diseases of the World Health Organization and director of the Latin American Registry of Bone Pathology. He also was an active member of the International Skeletal Society.
Fritz was born in Vienna, Austria, where he received his basic medical education and, in 1938, his MD degree. Forced to leave by the Nazis, he went first to Bologna, Italy, and then to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he established himself as a bone pathologist. He developed a close associ- ation with Jose Valls and Carlos Ottolenghi, the most noted orthopedic surgeons in Argentina at that time. To support his growing interest and expertise in bone pathology, he created the Latin American Registry of Bone Pathology. As direc- tor of the registry, he amassed more than 30,000 cases, which formed the basis of his classic text- book. He taught at the University of Buenos Aires for nearly 45 years. He then joined the faculty of St. Louis University, as he and his wife wanted to live near their two daughters, who had been edu- cated in St. Louis and had chosen to remain in this country after marriage to United States citizens.
For the last few years of his life, until he died of a sudden heart attack, he taught (and was an active member) in the departments of orthopedic surgery at St. Louis University and at the Rush–Presbyterian–St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago.
He most cherished the honor conferred on him in 1990 by the City of Vienna, the Goldene Ehrenzeichen (Gold Star), which is the most distinguished award given by the city for cul- tural and scientific merit. He was fully aware of the irony of receiving such an honor from a city from which he, for practical purposes, had been expelled decades before.
Fritz was an assiduous worker, a vigorous pro- moter of bone pathology as a specialty, a careful writer, and a warm family man. He had a won- derful sense of humor, a drive to educate, and a remarkable ability to get things done. His text on bone tumors will serve as a lasting memorial to his achievements.
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