Erich Fischer-Brügge (28.12.1904-4.2.1951) - Founder of Neurosurgery at the University of Münster

Abstract

In 1936, Erich Fischer-Brügge, who worked as a surgeon at the University Clinic of Münster, Westfalia, Germany, visited Wilhelm Tönnis in Würzburg, to receive neurosurgical training. He commenced his work in the field of neurosurgery in Münster from 1937. In 1938 he published a new classification of the anterior circulation of cerebral arteries in states of tumorous mass lesions. From 1939 through to the end of WW II, Tönnis and Fischer-Brügge worked closely together, mainly in the field of war surgery. After WW II, in 1949, Fischer-Brügge published another relevant clinical contribution on the "Clivuskantensyndom". He recognised the ipsilateral osseous compression of the oculomotor nerve at the sphenoidal ridge in raised intracranial pressure. Paul Sunder-Plassmann, successor of Hermann Coenen as chief of surgery at the University Clinic in 1946, inhibited Fischer-Brügge's neurosurgical work massively. After numerous unsuccessful applications for newly installed neurosurgical units, Fischer-Brügge died at the age of only 46 years.