[Anaesthesiological management of postmortem organ donors - What Evidence is Out There?].

The transplantation of organs from postmortem organ donors has been a lifesaving and quality-of-life-improving therapy for patients with irreversible organ failure for many years. In Germany, however, there has been an imbalance between the number of organs donated postmortem and the number of patients on the waiting list for years. The anesthesiological management of multiple organ harvesting (MOE) in postmortem organ donors is not an everyday challenge for various reasons: A lack of practical expertise due to the small number of MOE, even at university hospitals (usually < 20 per year), complex pathophysiological changes in the cardiovascular system and other organ functions of the postmortem organ donor and the lack of guidelines complicate anesthesiological management.

[From ether anesthesia to "green" anesthesia : Challenges in anesthesiology over the last 175 years].

The first public demonstration of ether anesthesia took place 175 years ago. Since that time, insensitivity to pain during surgical operations has been possible. The "Ether Day" has been portrayed in many ways.

Nixon and Scheel in China: Acupuncture and Anesthesia in West and East Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.

Background: Acupuncture anesthesia was used instead of intubation anesthesia in the 1970s and 1980s in West Germany and West Berlin. In East Germany acupuncture played no decisive role.

Sources: Different articles and papers in journals, in daily press, statements of contemporary witnesses, films, records in archives.

[The speech on Bier as a problem. Arthur Israel (1883-1969) and his struggle to come to terms with the Berlin University Surgical Clinic].

Arthur Israel was associated with August Bier's University Surgical Clinic in Berlin from 1910 to 1933, in the end as the head of the downgraded (outpatient) clinic. After he was forced out of his Berlin post, Israel was department head in the Israelitisches Krankenhaus Hamburg until he emigrated to the U.S.

[Pandemic without drama. Influenza vaccination and Asian flu in Germany].

The history of the 1957/58 Asian flu in Germany is systematically presented for the first time. The focus is on flu vaccination, which is discussed as a yardstick of the perception of the pandemic. International expertise on influenza virology was predominantly based in Anglo-Saxon countries.

[The influenza pandemic of 1918-20 in medical debate].

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-20 in medical debate. The history of the so called Spanish Influenza 1918-1920 is summarized especially in regard to the developments in medical debate. In Germany, Richard Pfeiffer, who had discovered Haemophilus influenzae after the previous pandemic 1890/91, managed it to defend his thesis that his "bacillus" was the causative agent of the flu, by modifying his theory moderately.