American Medical Biographies/Bernays, Augustus Charles
Bernays, Augustus Charles (1854–1907)
Augustus Charles Bernays was born in 1854 and was not yet eighteen when his remarkable career of scientific study and achievement commenced. He matriculated at the University of Heidelberg in 1872 and graduated there. He also took the membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and was intimately associated in his surgical training with Simon, Lister, Marion Sims, Lossen and von Langenbeck, the last of whom he always characterized as the prince of surgeons.
It was his original investigations on the anatomy of the knee-joint and of the heart which first made his name familiar wherever medical science is taught. His papers included:
"Ideal Cholecystotomy, a successful case; with critical remarks on the pathology and the different operative procedures practised on the system of gall vessels," 1885; "Kolpo-hysterectomy; successful cases of total extirpation of the uterus through the vagina," 1885; "A Case of Cystic Tumor of the Jaw in a Negro, and some new observations on the pathological histology of this disease," 1885; "The Complete Method of Operation in Cases of Cancer of the Breast," 1885.
He died May 22, 1907, at the age of fifty-two, from the rupture of a cardiac aneurysm. He had been endowed with an intuitive diagnostic ability which was so marvelous at times as to be termed by those near him almost a gift of second sight.