Franz von Winckel (1837-1911)

Franz Karl Ludwig Wilhelm von Winckel was a German gynecologist and obstetrician who was born in Berleburg on June 5, 1837. He received his medical doctorate in Berlin in 1860, and later became a Professor of Gynecology in Rostock (18640. In 1872 he became director of the Königlichen Landesentbindungsschule in Dresden, and from 1883 onward, was director of the Frauenklinik at the University of Munich. He died on December 31, 1911.

Winckel was the first president of the Deutschen Gesellschaft für Gynäkologie und Geburtshilfe (German Society for Gynecology and Obstetrics). He published many papers in professional journals and authored or edited several textbooks. His name is associated with several diseases, maneuvers, and procedures.

In Dresden in 1880, Winckel devised a warming bath to be used for premature and asphyxiated infants, and published a description in Centralblatt Gynakologie in 1882 (English abstract and original German linked below). The diagram below is from Winckel’s paper.

The next sketch, which gives you an idea of how the device looked in real life, is from Joseph De Lee’s 1901 article “Infant Incubation, with the Presentation of a New Incubator and a Description of the System at the Chicago Lying-In Hospital” (linked below).

• Über Anwendung permanenter Bäder bei Neugeborenen, by Franz Winckel, Centralblatt für Gynäkologie, Nos. 1, 2, and 3, 1882 [German]
• On the Use of a Constant Bath for New-Born Children, by Franz Winckel, abstracted in Archives of Pediatrics 2(2):108, Feb.1882 [English]
• Infant Incubation, with the Presentation of a New Incubator and a Description of the System at the Chicago Lying-In Hospital, by Joseph B. DeLee, Chicago Medical Recorder 22:22-40, 1902.

Last Updated on 02/23/24