History of Medicine

Chirurgia (2017) 112: 7-11 No. 1, January - February Copyright© Celsius http://dx.doi.org/10.21614/chirurgia.112.1.7

Professor Constantin Dimitrescu-Severeanu Our Father and Contemporary (1840-1930)

Vasile Sârbu1, Silviu Constantinoiu2

1Faculty of Medicine, Ovidius University, Constanåa, 2General and Esophageal Surgery Clinic, Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, , Romania

Corresponding author: Constantin Dimitrescu-Severeanu is for us, contemporary Romanian Professor Vasile Sârbu surgeons, a monumental figure, perceived unjustly as old, originating in Faculty of Medicine, Ovidius Univeristy the museum's halls of national medicine, someone like Péan, Volkmann, Constanta, Romania E-mail: [email protected] Nélaton, Guyon, Langenbeck, Esmarch or Billroth to countries where they lived. Nationally, his figure has been somewhat pushed into the past by Thoma Ionescu the creator of the National School of Surgery. It is necessary to look by comparison between the brilliance and modernism of Thoma Ionescu and Severeanu`s efforts to get us out, like Moses from the egyptian slavery, out of the old ways of surgery without anesthesia, antiseptics, without asepsia, when opening of the womb, the chest and cranial cavity was not even thought by someone. Severeanu said that in 1864 and Thoma Ionescu returned to Bucharest from after 30 years in 1895, when the big leap and synchronization with European medicine had been done. His childhood in the Cioponea family, a hardworking family of 12 children, from Baltaţi (Mehedinţi) is well known. Constantin came into the world on May 4, 1840, beginning primary school at the age of 13 in Turnu Severin, then at the age of 15 enrolling at Davila School and then performing his last 2 years as a student in Paris where he got his PhD in 1864. He was then a secondary physician at Colentina Hospital, then primary physician at Colţea Hospital (1869), where there was a surgery department headed by Professor Nicolae Turnescu, the firs Dean (1869) of the newly founded Faculty of Medicine in Bucharest. At Colţea Hospital he will lead for 40 years (1870-1910) a department of surgery in which his great achievements will be done.

His first impressive surgery took place at Colentina Hospital where he performed a chelotomy attended by his teachers, Turnescu, Polizu and Received: 27.01.2017 Capşa and after that, as a sign of appreciation, Carol Davila invited him Accepted: 14.02.2017 to dinner. His second impressive moment was the incision of a

Chirurgia, 112 (1), 2017 7 V. Sârbu & S. Constantinoiu tonsillar phlegmon associated with trismus Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen achieved his brilliant (through the space left free by the absence of a discovery made in December 1895. Well informed molar) saving the life of Carol Davila himself. and good assessor of medical novelties, professor Among all the physicians attending, Zita, Fotino, Severeanu took part in the Conference of D. Severin, Turnescu, Patzelt, Marcovici, Fialla, Hurmuzescu, held it in 1896 at the Bridges and Obedenaru and Severeanu, Davila chose him by Roads School from Bucharest. Since March 1896, writing on a piece "Si je dois guerir par mi". Eisenecker performed the first demonstrations of Obedenaru "Je prefer etre tue par Severeanu" X-rays and realized the image of a wallet with (Obedenaru had taken responsibility to operate coins, a watch, a key and his own hand. him). His brilliant intuition was given by the space At a conference in June held by Hurmuzescu, that he chose for the insertion of the scalpel and by professor Severeanu had X-rayed his own hand, but his anatomical accuracy. Equally brilliant was his with eyes wide open to the future returned to Colţea intuition in introducing the microscope in cancer Hospital where helped by Broehm and Eisenecker examination (1). After Charles Robin`s unattractive himself improvised a makeshift radiology apparatus course in Paris, Severeanu bought a microscope and in the Surgery clinic. It was a device "good enough Kolliker`s book about the method of using it, visited that it can serve for the discovery of metallic foreign a factory of microscopes and surgical instruments objects in the human body. "It would be recalled that and then carried out a pathological examination of a Prince Ferdinand and Princess Maria exhibited tumoral biopsy. their hands, thus yielding the first bone X-rays in Let`s stop at another moment that tell us about Romania. A year had passed since the discovery of Severeanu`s intuition. One day professor Severeanu X-rays when professor Severeanu, among the first in found out that Dr. Nicholas Kernbach, with medical the world, in the report of the Surgical Service in studies in Strasbourg, indicated the existence and 1896-1897 shows the first radiographs performed in use in Germany of a tool called "thermometer". With our country. And in August 1897 at the International brilliant intuition, Professor Severeanu granted this Congress of Medicine in Moscow presents the paper an incredible value. Professor Dimitrescu-Severeanu "Utilite des raysons X en chirurgie". was aware of the idea of some German doctors to One of his students, D. Gerota will be our know the true temperature of the body, which first radiologist and will lead the first radiology labo- until then, was "measured" with the palm of the ratory in our country, at the initiative of Professor examiner. He knew about Wenderlich from Leipzig Severeanu. Since 1906 the laboratory was entrusted brochure (1868-1869), who spoke about the tempera- to Gh. Severeanu (1878-1939) the professor's son, ture change that appears in some diseases. who became the first radiology professor in Romania. Professor Severeanu personally went to Leipzig Within this direction, of intuition and inventiveness, to Professor Wunderlich in 1873, instructing the creation of new surgical instruments and himself on how to use a thermometer, and sensing amending of existing ones (3). For example, in 1870, the value of patient thermometrisation, brought it he imagined two new porserfine models, the change to romanian medicine (2). of Pean forceps (new forceps very useful in hysterec- Similarly, he sensed the importance of mainte- tomies - named Severeanu forceps), change of the nance of the surgical instruments and the purchase Richelaut forceps and of the Dupuytren enterotome. of new instruments. When he was a young intern at With imagination, he conceived a spoon with which Colţea Hospital he met the whetter Bubenicek, that to reposition the humeral head in the glenoid cavity, sharped scalpels, and passing through Bucharest by in case of sprains, through a personal procedure. chance he discovered Broehm and his friend Professor Severeanu went to the Berlin Congress Travizani shop, that came from Paris (Factory with a bladder probe designed by him, that was Charier) and (Factory Suer) which with designed so as not to hurt the bladder and that had 50 gold coins had opened a business: repair and a trough which was used to cut through in hypo- maintenance of medical instruments. Professor gastric and perineal incisions. Severeanu brilliant intuition led him to Carol Davila As a student in Paris, Severeanu was deeply where he secured the employment of the two and set negatively impressed by the severe infections in up a small workshop at Colţea Hospital. Broehm`s hospitals and especially by their explanation by company will import surgical instruments, anti- miasms and by surgeons that did not wash their septics and many others, especially from hands, Pean performed surgeries dressed in a Schaffhausen factory for over 70 years. tuxedo that he considered cleaner than everyday He had the same intuition of the future when clothes.

8 Chirurgia, 112 (1), 2017 Professor Constantin Dimitrescu-Severeanu

Severeanu knew that Pasteur discovered what Lister's discoveries. Let's remember that wool causes infections and Lister worked in aseptic dressing was discovered in 1870 by Alphonse Guerin. conditions. This explains why Severeanu, who Severeanu immediately adopted it during his visit. became a surgeon at Colentina and then at Colţea, Antisepsis will be adopted not only by Severeanu in decides to undertake a new journey in Europe. 1873 but after the Berlin Congress by Langebeck, In Budapest, in 1847, Ignás Fulop Semmelweis, Esmarde, Bruns, Volkmann, Billroth and Thiersch. a former student in Vienna, who was working as After his journey in 1873 Severeanu introduced a physician in maternity, made an interesting wool bandages instead of lint ones and started observation: births in areas frequented by students using dressings with hydrophilic cotton wool, who perform dissections on cadavers were more hydrophilic gauze and. He will later use gloves and often accompanied by puerperal infections than the mask also anticipated by Assaky and T. Ionescu. areas unfrequented by students. He proposed that As regarding anesthesia, Severeanu used chloro- midwifes wash their hands with a solution of form general anesthesia introduced in practice in calcium chloride (he believed it could neutralize a 1847. The first general anesthesia using a mask was deadly poison that intoxicated the body of the performed in 1846, in Boston, by William Morton, mother); the mortality decreased rapidly (4). using ether as the volatile gas, for a tooth extraction. It was nine years after his arrival from Paris But he also used local and spinal anesthesia (4). (1873) and he wanted to know what was new in Severeanu being aware of Claude Bernard's medicine. He wanted to personally see in Germany, recommendation of combining morphine with chloro- Lister in England as well as other great surgeons form, recommended morphine injections minutes and he wanted specially to see how they apply anti- before administering chloroform. Nowadays, sepsis apply and how they operate. patients’ premedication has an importance few Reputed centers where he went were: Prague, dreamed about in that time. On December 29, 1899 Breslau (at Fischer), Leipzig (professors Wunderlich Severeanu performed our country first spinal and Karl Thiersch). He learned about Lister's anesthesia, helped by his resident D. Gerota. methods, about the thermometer and he wanted to Tuffier and Chaput in Paris, also in 1899 visit the Schaffhauser dressings factory. Then a visit introduced spinal anesteshia and have made an to Dresden and Berlin followed at surgeons enormous propaganda in its favour. Severeanu used Langenbeck and Adolf Bardeleben. Here he was cocaine hydrochloride as they did but its toxic effects particularly impressed by the young assistant and dangers made him circumspect after the first 27 Bergman who was interested of new surgical cases, the advocating for general anesthesia. techniques. At Halle he met Volkmann then went to He was aware of Thoma Ionescu`s success with Kiel and Hanover. He went to Brussels and the upper spinal anesthesia by stovainisation, in Netherlands too. Romania but also in Britain and the US, but The journey to Glasgow followed, where appar- remained reserved of the method, but this does not ently, he did not arrive, from Dower going to Paris mean that he did not cherished him. Severeanu (Lister in 1873 was transferred to Edinburgh). It urged Iancu Jianu to learn the method and left him seems that he arrives in Glasgow on a later, different. the freedom to practice it. Toma Ionescu saw In 1873 Lister demanded disinfection of the surgical Severeanu as a sacred monster of Romanian surgery instruments, hands, dressing, surgery rooms using and in 1898 appointed him the first President of the fenic acid. His method is applied sporadically, only by Romanian Society of Surgery, inviting him to chair some surgeons. Even in England, Simpson and its constituent session (5). Spens did not see favorably Lister's method even if they were separated only by some hospital walls. The method fascinated professor Severeanu who was horrified when he learned that in the Munich hospital gangrene comprised 80% of cases and the Severeanu, a progressive surgeon with a formidable demolition of the hospital was in debate. 2 years after sense of new and sustainable operations, having Severeanu's journey, in 1875 in Berlin, Lister will devised anesthesia, antisepsis and sterility tackled first communicate his method (although the results visceral surgery with great success. of his method were published in 1867 in the "The He performed the first laparotomies in romanian Lancet"). Lister's method will be adopted only at the surgery, the first splenectomy for a giant post- end of his life (1827-1912). Arriving in Paris in 1873, malaric spleen, first vaginal and abdominal Professor Severeanu found surgeons who mocked hysterectomies, thyroid surgery, resection of the

Chirurgia, 112 (1), 2017 9 V. Sârbu & S. Constantinoiu upper jaw, appendectomies, gastro-enteral anasto- righteous and correct man, including the invita- mosis in ulcerative stenosis, orthopedic surgery, tions he received as a doctor and refferee at many rhinoplasty, tracheostomy, etc. duels, as an expert in leading journals, as founder What gave him immense notoriety was "arterial of settlements needed by the Romanian people of catheterization", first trombendarterectomy of his time (First Health Home, first Vaccines universal surgery, applied to a blunt ischemic thigh. Institute, first Institute of Sisters of Charity "St. His intuition represented the starting point of Elizabeth", 1879 etc). He was the first president of contemporary blood flow restoration and explo- the Romanian Society of Surgery where he along rations in vascular surgery. In the same category, we with T. Ionescu imposed a style and model of must mention the over the edge stitch, surget thread, debate that continues today as if Severeanu is wrongly named Doyen, which is widely used in present with us. He was elected the first president modern surgery including laparoscopic, plastic and of the Society for the History of Medicine in 1829 cardiovascular surgery. It was once again a world founded by the initiative of his intransigent pupil first. "Suture of the abdominal wall" is again an V. Gomoiu, fought with medical charlatans of the international priority, which applies to all operating time, published books (lessons) of surgery required theaters today, communicated today in Berlin at the by students, went with dignity to famous Congress German Surgeons Congress in 1887. He developed it as those of Berlin (four times), Paris (several to reduce the number of postoperative hernias. What times), Lyon, Rome, Vienna, Moscow, where he and is amazing and makes him monumental in our eyes T. Ionescu presented the achievements of our is the fact that his surgeries passed the test of time. national surgery. How to perform an organ transplant or vascular or In old age, when uncovered in his attic the Mason digestive bypass without the surget suture. apron he frankly confessed that "so said Davila" who The surgery for cleft lip, the only one named was also a Mason, as Napoleon-III who protected "the Severeanu surgery" gave the measure of his Davila, Cuza or Alecsandri, Carol I, Bratianu and talent and surgical logic because he was the first many other Masons. He was a friend and had who dissected the myo-mucocutaneous plans and distinct relationships with the great lawyers of the sutured them separately to achieve both esthetic time (Vernescu, Costa-Forn Boerescu) with great results and high functionality. Logical thinking led performers (Haricleea Darcle, Elena Teohari, royalty him to recommend and carry out "Decapitation of (Carol Ferdinand) with Kogalniceanu who died in the femoral head in irreducible hip sprains" or front of him from an intervention at Guyon's Clinic, apply a new method for reducing old glenohumeral with paimters such as Tattarescu, Th. Aman, Nicolae dislocations. Grigorescu and especially Ion Andreescu who loved him and who died of tuberculosis after a life of misery and poverty. He suffered at the undeserved death of personalities such as king Ferdinand (unde- Professor Severeanu introduced intradermal tected rectal cancer), I.C. Bratianu (accidental suturing in surgery and other aesthetic sutures; he carotid injury) and Vasile Parvan unsuccessfully urged all young surgeons to operate in cleavage operated, when Severeanu exclaimed "why did plans to make small pedicles, only with Pean Angelescu do it?". forceps, not Kocher, to clamp only the vessel that When Turnescu, his teacher at the School of bleed. The first thing he teaches surgeons was how Davila was in trouble, Severeanu did not criticize to ligate a vessel, uncrossed, neither too tight nor too him and when he was promoted as professor he did loose. He often performed difficult operations such not take the clinic but instead created two clinics. as resection of the upper jaw or facial cancers, or And when he emerged from Lille where he bronchial foreign body extraction, rhinoplasty, served as Assistant Professor, Gheorghe Assaky surgery for facial malformations, vascular surgery, (1886), made famous by his brilliant work, "The vascular reperfusion, and so his virtuosity was suture of nerves at distance" Severeanu joined the visible and consecrated. He performed surgery group of those who demanded that he must pass an without haste, but avoided unnecessary steps and exam in order to become professor. He refused, gestures, making surgeries fast and smooth. believing that he had passed a more signifcant exam in Lille, which was more important than the one in Bucharest. Finally, through an error immense, Assaky was disbanded as well as his There are many elements which present us him as Institute and so he was forced to go back to Paris,

10 Chirurgia, 112 (1), 2017 Professor Constantin Dimitrescu-Severeanu although Bratianu accepted Babes, Kalinderu and He was a happy man, traveled to many countries, Assaky as professors by a special law (1897). A new took great dignity, had 4 children, shocked contem- law cut the Institute's budget and Assaky was poraries by professionalism, left the department and practically forced out of education. clinic dignified, raised pupils of great prestige; he Severeanu joined the unjust denigrators’ cam- was among the aristocracy of the era, around Carol I paign. Medical students from Bucharest together and Ferdinand and great artists and writers. He was with the Medical Students Society and its President, bright but modest, did not appropriate its position, Gh. Marinescu remained with Assaky along with went with pleasure and visited all realms of our many teachers and so have restored and reinstated homeland. He died of a brain haemorrhage after a him, thus defeating the Romniceanu group lecture at the Athenaeum in 1930, four years after Romniceanu (also through a special law). Assaky will Thoma Ionescu, which burned brighter, but that was die young, and Severeanu will reassess and make a not a contemporary of the great progress in the unique gesture to his fellow and recognize that he second half of the nineteenth century and has not was wrong and would reject what he had done. sensed those operations that were not perishable, A motivation in a way that will be available over maybe because he was too great of an anatomist decades and even today: a great man, even greater while Professor Severeanu was too great of a teacher can make mistakes in relationships with his surgeon. colleagues. And he erred because what he meant was that students that returned from studies in the References west ought not to replace the generation that preceded them, in this case, Davila's generation. 1. Angelescu N. Constantin Dimitrescu-Severeanu (1840-1930). And it was not his only admitted error, because one Chirurgia (Bucur). 2006 Jan-Feb;101(1):9-11. Romanian day he presented at the Romanian Society of 2. Jianu I, Bercus C. Constantin Dimitrescu Severeanu. The age and the opera. Craiova; 1979. Surgery a resounding failure: the death of a patient, 3. Suceveanu CD. From my memories (1853-1929). Bucharest (taking that the necropsy proved had acute appendicitis and care of C. Rezachevici); 2008. that was declined surgery both by him and Thoma 4. Constantinoiu S. Istoricul Chirurgiei. În Manual de Chirurgie pentru Ionescu. This has opened a great way of communi- studenåi, sub redacåia Eugen Brãtucu. Bucuresti: Ed. Universitarã Carol Davila; 2009. p.1-25. cating own professional failures that it will further 5. Sarbu V. Pages from Romanian surgery history. Bucharest: Acad. be illustrated by many valuable surgeons. Rom. Ed.; 2002.

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