Otto Gerhard Karl Sprengel

Otto Gerhard Karl Sprengel studied medicine in Tübingen, Munich, Rostock, and Warburg, obtaining his degree in 1877 at the University of Marburg, where he began his surgical career as an assistant to Wilhelm Roser (1817-1888). Sprengel spent the next three years as assistant to Richard von Volkmann (1830-1889) in Halle, and practiced for a brief period of time in Frankfurt am Main, before befor he was ppointed head surgeon to the Children’s Hospital, Dresden, in 1882. In 1896 he moved to Braunschweig, where he received the title of professor and became head of the surgical department of the hospital. Sprengel’s main interest was in abdominal surgery; he was a skilled operator and avid researcher in this field and wrote several important monographs. In 1915 he was elected to the presidency of the Surgical Society of Germany and as medical privy counsellor of Braunschweig. He died from an infection caught during an operation.