Celebrated Physicians of Austria Series

The Celebrated Physicians of Austria Series honors four Viennese physicians: Clemens von Pirquet, Theodor Billroth, Philip Semmelweis, and Gerard van Swieten.

Clemens von Pirquet

 * Coin Article: 2010 Austria Gold 50 Euro Clemens von Pirquet

Clemens Peter Freiherr von Pirquet (May 12, 1874–February 28, 1929) was an Austrian scientist and pediatrician best known for his contributions to the fields of bacteriology and immunology.

Born in Vienna, he studied theology at the University of Innsbruck and philosophy at the University of Leuven before he enrolled at the University of Graz where he became a doctor of medicine in 1900. He started practicing at the Children's Clinic in Vienna.

In 1906 he noticed that patients who had previously received injections of horse serum or smallpox vaccine had quicker, more severe reactions to a second injection. He, along with Bela Schick, coined the word allergy (from the Greek allos meaning "other" and ergon meaning "reaction") to describe this hypersensitivity reaction.

Soon after, the observation with smallpox led Pirquet to realize that tuberculin, which Robert Koch isolated from the bacteria that cause tuberculosis in 1890, might lead to a similar type of reaction. Charles Mantoux expanded upon Pirquet's ideas and the Mantoux test, in which tuberculin is injected into the skin, became a diagnostic test for tuberculosis in 1907.

Theodor Billroth

 * Coin Article: 2009 Austria Gold 50 Euro Theodur Billroth

Christian Albert Theodor Billroth (26 April 1829 at Bergen auf Rügen in the Kingdom of Prussia – 6 February 1894) was a German-born Austrian surgeon and amateur musician.

As a surgeon, he is generally regarded as the founding father of modern abdominal surgery. As a musician, he was a close friend and confidante of Johannes Brahms, a leading patron of the Viennese musical scene, and one of the first to attempt a scientific analysis of musicality.

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis

 * Coin Article: 2008 Austria Gold 50 Euro Philip Semmelweis

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician described as the "savior of mothers", who discovered by 1847 that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection (by means of hand washing with chlorinated lime solution) in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever (or childbed fever) was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal, with mortality at 10%–35%. Semmelweis postulated the theory of washing with "chlorinated lime solutions" in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital's First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors' wards had three times the mortality of midwives' wards. He published a book of his findings in childbed fever in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever.

Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis's practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory. In 1865, a nervous breakdown (or possibly Alzheimer's) landed him in an asylum, where Semmelweis died of injuries, at age 47.

Gerard van Swieten

 * Coin Article: 2007 Austria Gold 50 Euro Gerard van Swieten

Gerard van Swieten (1700-1772) was a Dutch-Austrian physician.

Van Swieten was born in Leiden. He was a pupil of Hermann Boerhaave and became in 1745 the personal physician of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. In this position he implemented a transformation of the Austrian health service and medical university education. He founded a botanical garden, a chemical laboratory and introduced clinical instruction.