DITTEL, LEOPOLD RITTER VON:

By: Isidore Singer, Frederick T. Haneman

Austrian surgeon; born at Fulneck, Moravia, May 15, 1815; died at Vienna July 28, 1898. He was educated at the gymnasia of Troppau and Brünn, and at the University of Vienna, whence he was graduated as doctor of medicine in 1840.

After acting for a short time as assistant physician at the gymnastic-orthopedic institute of Zink in Vienna, he engaged in practise as a physician at Trentschin-Teplitz, Hungary. Being busy only during the summer months, he studied during the winter in Vienna under Skoda, Rokitansky, and Hebra, and in 1852 became assistant to Dlauhy in Vienna. From 1853 to 1857 he was assistant to Dumreicher and assistant surgeon at the hospital of the University of Vienna. In 1856 he became privat-docent at the university; in 1861 he was appointed surgeon-in-chief of the Allgemeine Krankenhaus, and in 1865 he was made assistant professor. Dittel was the founder (1864) and for a long time chief of the surgical-anatomicalinstitute of the university. Resigning his academic position in 1875, he refused in 1880 the appointment of professor at the university in succession to Dumreicher. Soon afterward he was ennobled.

Dittel made a special study of urinology, in which branch he was very eminent. In 1894 he made a report on 800 operations for stone performed by him. His greatest achievements were: the construction of a carrier for drugs for local treatment of the urethra; the endoscopic diagnosis, especially of tumors of the bladder; the electrical lamp instead of the platina wire on the end of the cystoscope; operations on the bladder through the rectum (see Albert's memorial speech on Dittel in "Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift," 1898, No. 42).

Dittel embraced the Catholic faith. He was a prolific writer. Of his many essays and works may be mentioned: "Ueber Klumpfuss," 1851; "Skoliose," 1853; "Beiträge zur Pathologie und Therapie der Männlichen Geschlechtstheile," 1859; "Sekundäre Luxation des Hüftgelenkes," 1861; "Der Kathederismus," 1864; "Beitrag zur Lehre der Hypertrophie der Prostata," in "Oesterreichischer Medizinischer Jahrbericht," 1867; "Der Steinsauger," in "Allgemeine Wiener Medizinische Zeitung," 1870; "Die Stricturen der HarnrÖhre," in Pitha-Billroth's "Handbuch der Chirurgie," ii., part 2, 1872; "Zur Behandlung der Hypertrophie der Vorsteherdrüse," in "Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift," 1876; "Operationen der Blasensteine," ib. 1880; "Nierencalculose," ib. 1881.

S. F. T. H.