[Martin Kirschner (1879-1942): the founder of modern trauma clinics and emergency medicine].

German surgeon Martin Kirschner (1879-1942) made a significant contribution not only to the general surgery but to orthopaedic surgery, traumatology and pain therapy as well. He gave a huge contribution to the institutions where he worked (Köningsberg), and some of them he had even built from the foundation (Tübingen, Heidelberg). He also established mobile hospitals and is the forefather of the trauma service and emergency medicine. In orthopaedics, he remains renowned for skeletal tractions, bone elongations, invention of thin wire, which is still widely used today in external fixation and which was named after him as Kirschner wire.