Christian Stengel

Stengel was the son of the merchant Johann Christian Stengel and Catharina Holling in Wewelsfleth, near Glückstadt in Holstein. In 1810 he became an apprentice in surgery at the hospital in Glückstadt and in 1812 went to Copenhagen to study surgery. As Denmark was in alliance with France, the country became involved in a war against the alliance opposing France. As the Danish army lacked subordinate physicians, Stengel in 1812 was hired as a company surgeon and in 1813 came to Holstein, serving at the field hospital in Kiel. When Holstein was occupied by Carl Johan, the crown prince of Sweden, Stengel became a prisoner of war, but continued hos work at field hospital until the spring of 1814, when the hospital was abandoned.

Stengel was subsequently ordered to Copenhagen, and soon afterwards despatched as a company surgeon in the Norwegian army. After the peace between Norway and Sweden he received employment as compaby surgeon with the field artilley in Christiania (now Oslo), remaining in this position until October 21, 1821. He passed his preliminary examination in 1816 and on May 22, 1821, graduated in medicine. At this time Carl Johan, the son of a French lawyer and a former general of the French army unde the name of Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, was now king of Sweden and Norway.

From the autumn of 1821 to April 1882 he was physcian in the minining community of Røros. In 1871 the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in Røros was celebrated with great festivity. On this occasion the people of Røros established a legacy in his memory. In 1862 he received a major gift of honour in silver from his fellow citizens. On September 15, 1881, his sixtieth anniversary in Røror, he was made a knight of the Order of St. Olav for “long and faithful service”. He retired in 1882. Stengel lived in this mining community for 69 years.

Christian Stengel married Henningea Lovise Aschenberg (1806-1839) in July 1927. They had two sons, of which one survived childhood. On October 10, 1844, he married Gunhild Kjelsberg (born 1820-1872). They had 3 children, of which a son and a daughter survived childhood.

Stengel was the first to describe the disease which is now commonly called the Spielmeyer-Vogt disease.

• Beretning om et mærkeligt Sygdomstilfælde hos fire Sødskende.
  Eyr, 1826, I: 347-352.
• Udfaldet af et tiaarigt Svangerskab. Eyr, 1826, II: 134-137.
• Beretning om en abseces, hvori fantes en synaal.
  Eyr, 1826, III: 229-230.
  (Report on an abscess, in which was found a sewing needle).