STILLING, BENEDIKT:

By: Isidore Singer, Frederick T. Haneman

German anatomist and surgeon; born at Kirchhayn, Hesse, Feb. 22, 1810; died at Cassel Jan. 28, 1879. He studied at the University of Marburg, and, on taking his degree of M. D. in 1832, was appointed assistant at the anatomical institute attached to his alma mater. In 1833 he was appointed district surgeon at Cassel, which position he resigned in 1840 in order to devote himself entirely to his private practise. In 1867 he received the title of "Geheimer Sanitätsrath."

In 1836 and in 1843 Stilling took postgraduate courses in Paris; and in 1858, 1869, and 1873 he was engaged in scientific researches in Italy, Paris, London, Edinburgh, and Vienna. He was the first surgeon to introduce ovariotomy into Germany(1837); and he was also the first anatomist who used the term "vasomotor nerves" (1840). His works on the central organs of the nervous system, especially the brain, were standard productions for which he received several prizes from the French Institute.

Of Stilling's works the following may be mentioned: "Die Bildung und Metamorphose des Blutpfropfsoder Thrombus in Verletzten Blutgefässen," Eisenach, 1834; "Die Natürlichen Processe bei der Heilung Durchschlungener Blutgefässe, mit Besonderer Rücksicht auf den Thrombus," ib. 1834; "Die Gefässverschlingung," Marburg, 1835; "Geschichte einer Exstirpation eines Krankhaft Vergrösserten Ovariums," etc., in Holscher's "Hannöverschen Annalen der Gesammten Heilkunde," 1841 (ten years later Duffin published in London a report of his operations in the same field, claiming the initiative for himself); "Physiologisch-Pathologische und Medicinisch-Praktische Untersuchungen über die Spinal Irritation," Leipsic, 1841; "Untersuchungen über die Funktionen des Rückenmarks und der Nerven," ib. 1842; "Ueber Textur und Funktionen der Medulla Oblongata," Erlangen, 1843; "Untersuchungen über Bau und Verrichtungen des Gehirns," Jena, 1846; "Neue Untersuchungen über den Bau des Rückenmarks," Cassel, 1859; "Untersuchungen über den Bau des Kleinen Gehirns," ib. 1864-67; "Die Rationelle Behandlung der Harnröhrenstrikturen," ib. 1870; "Neue Untersuchungen über den Bau des Kleinen Gehirns," ib. 1878.

S. F. T. H.