Adam Politzer (1835-1920): his medical studies and publications in Hungarian.

OBJECTIVE

Adam Politzer was one of the most well-known otologists of the 19th century. Unfortunately, very little is known about his life during his years as a medical student and about his publications in Hungarian. The aim of this study is to summarize Politzer's student years between 1854 and 1859 and his 13 publications in Hungarian.

DATA SOURCES

Eleven of Politzer's 13 Hungarian publications were published while he was a student, and the remaining two were published in 1862 and 1908. These are rarely mentioned in Politzer's curriculum vitae.

CONCLUSION

The student publications concern only general medicine and deal with pleural effusion, pernicious anemia and iron deficiency, lung emphysema, bronchitis, ischialgia, Bright disease of the kidney, hepatic cancer, acute yellow atrophy of the liver, cystovarium, ectopic kidney, and ejaculatio praecox. This broad array of diseases demonstrates once again that to be a good otologist, it is necessary to have an open mind concerning others parts of the body. Along with the different influences of his teachers, this certainly explains why Politzer reached such a high a level in otology. The last two publications in Hungarian concern otology and deal with the effect of mud ear on parts of hearing (1862) and acute suppurative otitis media (1908).