From morphology of human body to reshaping a morphology of the society: heritage in the field of pathology of infectious diseases of Wilhelm Ebstein and work of councilman Sigismund Asch. A story how to counteract epidemics and to transform feudal system

Abstract

Collected, primary resources enabled us to extract data that are scarcely present in medical literature of the two Breslauer morphologists of both the human body and – metaphorically – the society: Wilhelm Ebstein (1836–1912) and Sigismund Asch (1825–1901), particularly the latter, who described morphology of melanosis in his doctoral dissertation in 1846, to switch on reshaping social morphology of Wrocław (Breslau) in Virchow-like manner. In contrast to the main perspective of Ebstein’s anomaly that has been finely described in past biographical papers, a primary aspect of infectious diseases is highlighted here in Ebstein’s heritage. In 1869, his habilitation on recurrent typhus provided professional support for Asch. As Ebstein cared for the poor in shelters of Wrocław, Asch admitted poor patients from early morning hours to gain such a great esteem to be elected alderman. Asch’s mentality corresponded to Ferdinand Lassalle’s philosophy of the social democratic movement. In front of cholera epidemics, Asch contributed to medical control of meat, development of city canalization, establishment of green areas as well he deeply got involved in charity institutions for widows and orphans and was a model medical doctor to follow for much more famous Janusz Korczak who perished together with children from his orphanage in Nazi Concentration Camp in Treblinka. Asch was immortalized as “Doctor Klaus” in the popular play by Adolf L’Arronge and united people in progress from feudal discrimination to democracy and in fight for civil rights in industrial society to gradually replace aristocracy with meritocracy in the mainstream of development of modern society.