[Our surgical heritage. Max Bürger and surgical pathophysiology. On the 100th birthday of Max Bürger (16 November 1885-5 February 1966].

Max Bürger, born in 1885 in Hamburg, was an outstanding physician in the first half of this century. He markedly influenced many fields in internal medicine. Even in 1922 he investigated the postoperative changes in protein metabolism on the basis of clinical experiments made together with the surgeon M. Grauhan. The discovery of the postoperative loss of nitrogen must be attributed to M. Bürger, not to D. P. Cuthbertson. In 1937 he was appointed to the vacant chair of internal medicine in the University of Leipzig. His work and his great achievements in the medical field were duly appreciated during his life and even after his death in 1966.