[Erwin Payr and his contributions to neurosurgery].

After having studied medicine in Vienna and worked in Graz, Greifswald and Königsberg, Erwin Payr, born February 17, 1871 in Vienna, led the Department of Surgery for nearly twenty-five years at the University of Leipzig. Under his leadership a private surgical clinic was founded, the present-day Clinic for Neurosurgery at the University of Leipzig. His surgical innovations include, among others, a new technique in the draining of brain abscesses through the use of elderberry stem capillaries, in the employment of absorbable magnesium threads for vascular and nerve sutures, as well as in the anesthetizing of the trigeminal nerve second branch in the case of trigeminal neuralgia. During the First World War he dedicated himself above all to neurotraumatic subjects such as the diagnosis and therapy of cranial and brain traumas. The reduction of elevated intracranial pressure and the creation of a passage of the cerebral fluid through the ventricle drainage in cases of hydrocephaly represented central themes of Payr's scientific works in the field of neurosurgery. Erwin Payr, recipient of manifold honors for his scientific contributions, his service as Professor and his multifaceted surgical knowledge, died in Leipzig in 1946 at the age of 75.