Sh03
emil Theodore Kocher – Nobel Prize Winner

Abstract

This year marks the 100th anniversary since Emil Theodore Kocher (1841–1917) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the first surgeon to win this prize, for his “work on the physiology, pathology and surgery of the thyroid gland”. After graduating from the University of Berne in 1865, he worked with the doyens of European and U.K. medicine: Billroth, Langenbeck, Lister, Pasteur, Paget, Wells and Hutchinson. Kocher was Professor of Surgery at Berne for 45 years. During this period, the Inselspital changed from a modest local surgical clinic to an institution regarded around the world as a Mecca for surgical thought and technique. By the end of the 19th century, surgeons felt they needed to communicate with each other and discuss their results so as to improve the art of surgery. The first International Society of Surgery (founded in 1902) had its first Congress in Brussels in 1905 under its President, Professor Kocher, who was regarded as one of the safest and most skilled surgeons in the world. He contributed innovations to gastrointestinal surgery, hernia repair, orthopaedics, military surgery, genitourinary surgery, haemostasis and shock, the diagnosis of brain and spinal cord disease, anaesthesia and the design of surgical instruments. Kocher, the icon of Swiss surgery, profoundly influenced the establishment of the scientific basis of American surgery through his connection with William Halstead and, in particular, Harvey Cushing. He was a modest and deeply religious man who was unaffected by fame and power dedicating his life to humanity with humility.