- Heinrich Neumann von Héthárs
Heinrich Neumann Ritter von Héthárs (
June 10 ,1873 Héthárs, thenHungary , nowSlovakia -November 6 ,1939 New York City ) was the foremost ear-nose-and-throat doctor in Vienna beforeWorld War II . In 1938 he transmitted to theEvian Conference the infamous offer by the German government to sell the Austrian Jews at a price of $250 per capita to any foreign country that would accept them and pay. This offer - and the Conference delegates' refusal to accept it - is the focal point ofHans Habe 's novel The Mission (1965).Life
Heinrich Neumann studied at the
University of Vienna , finishing with a doctorate in 1898. Already whilst a student he concerned himself with work on the normal and pathological anatomy of the ear inAnton Weichselbaum ’s institute. He subsequently worked inAdam Politzer 's private laboratory, and in 1900 he entered the university ear clinic, becoming assistant in 1903. In 1911 he became titular professor ofotology . From 1910 on he was the ear surgeon at the Spital der Kaufmannschaft (Merchants' Hospital), and from 1912 on head of the otology department of the Franz-Josef-Ambulatorium. In 1919 he became professor extraordinary and head of the university clinic for diseases of the ear, nose and larynx, succeedingViktor Urbantschitsch . Some years prior to the Anschluss he was contacted by Nazi Party doctors about a larynx problem that Adolf Hitler was suffering from. Prof. Dr. von Neumann, as he was by then known, refused to consider Hitler's case, and after theAnschluss was imprisoned as a Jew.His son, Johnny von Neumann (not to be confused with
John von Neumann the mathematician), became a well-known racing driver on the west coast of the US as well as entrepreneur.Work
Neumann was particularly recognized for his works on painless operations on bone without anaesthetics, on the clinics and pathology of intracranial complications of infections of the middle ear, equilibrium, and otosclerosis. Neumann devised a new and life-saving operation for opening the labyrinth, a technique that has later been general practice. Named after him is
Neumann's Method which is a manner to apply local anaesthesia of the middle ear and themastoid process by aprocaine -adrenaline injection on the surface of the mastoid process along the connection of the inner and outer ear and under the periost of theauditory meatus .
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