WÖLFLER, BERNARD:
Austrian physician; born at Praschnoaugezd, Bohemia, Dec. 8, 1816. After having studied philosophy at the gymnasium of Prague, he attended the University of Vienna (1836-42), where he devoted himself to the study of medicine. From 1843 to 1845 he acted as assistant physician at the communal hospital of Vienna; from 1845 to 1849 he was a private practitioner in Prague; and in 1849 he was appointed director of the Jewish hospital of Vienna. When Baron Anselm von Rothschild, impressed by the efficiency of the hospital in spite of its limitations, erected a better building and presented it to the congregation, Wölfler devoted his whole energy to the new institution, and visited several hospitals of western Europe in order to study their methods.
Wölfler founded (1872) a society for the gratuitous care of consumptives, without distinction of creed. Two country houses at Kierling, near Klosterneuburg, were secured; and every summer a number of patients have enjoyed a stay there with proper professional attendance. Wölfler has been a curator, and for many years president, of the institute for the blind founded at the Hohe Warte by Dr. Ludwig August Frankl. In 1866 the government conferred upon him the Order of Francis Joseph, and in 1873 he received the title of imperial councilor. On the occasion of his eightieth birthday (1896) the committee of the Jewish community of Vienna hung his portrait, painted in oil by the Countess Adrienne Pötting, on the wall of the committee-room in the hospital, among the portraits of its benefactors.
- Wurzbach, Biog. Lex. vol. lvii., s.v.
