16 Facts About Harald Hirschsprung

Harald Hirschsprung was a Danish physician who first described Hirschsprung's disease in 1886.

Harald Hirschsprung was a native of Copenhagen, born to Jewish parents.

Harald Hirschsprung passed his acceptance exam for university in 1848 and passed the Staatsexamen in 1855.

Harald Hirschsprung was interested in rare diseases affecting the gut throughout his life, and one such, atresia of the oesophagus and small bowel, was the subject of his doctoral thesis, presented in May 1861.

Harald Hirschsprung became the first Danish pediatrician in 1870, when he was appointed to a hospital for neonates.

Harald Hirschsprung was appointed a professor of pediatrics in 1891.

Harald Hirschsprung taught small classes on Sunday mornings between 9 and 11, to ensure that only truly dedicated students would come.

Harald Hirschsprung was not a great teacher having problems with public speaking and a penchant for focusing on rare cases rather than those most beneficial to general practice.

Harald Hirschsprung offered free health care for poor children while continuing to require patients with more means to pay.

Harald Hirschsprung went against the wishes of the queen, the hospital's namesake, in his insistence that pictures of animals, rather than biblical texts, be placed above each child's bed.

In 1904, when he was 74 years old, Harald Hirschsprung was forced to resign from his practice.

Harald Hirschsprung was buried in the Jewish section of Vestre Cemetery.

Harald Hirschsprung published on many areas of pediatrics, including pyloric stenosis, intussusception, rickets, and rheumatic nodules, but he is most well known for his work on the disease that later came to bear his name.

At the congress of the Congress for Children's Diseases in Berlin, Harald Hirschsprung gave a lecture about what would become "his" disease.

Harald Hirschsprung spoke of two infants who had died from the disease, constipation associated with dilatation and hypertrophy of the colon, and near the end of his lecture said that: "it appears unquestionable that the condition is caused in utero, either as a developmental abnormality or as a disease process".

Harald Hirschsprung published an account of the disease, which he believed to be a new condition, two years later.