author
Ernst Georg Ferdinand Küster
1839–1930
A leading German surgeon of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he helped shape modern urology and surgical practice while also writing about the history of his field. His life bridged hands-on hospital work, university teaching, and influential medical scholarship.
1 Audiobook
Geschichte der Neueren Deutschen Chirurgie
by Ernst Georg Ferdinand Küster
About the author
Born on November 2, 1839, in Wollin, Ernst Georg Ferdinand Küster studied medicine in Bonn, Würzburg, and Berlin. After graduating, he worked at Berlin's Bethanien Hospital under Robert Ferdinand Wilms, later qualifying as a university lecturer in surgery. He went on to serve at Berlin's Augusta Hospital and then became professor of surgery at the University of Marburg.
Küster is especially remembered for his work as a surgeon and urologist. He wrote on subjects including surgical diagnosis, gallstones, diseases of the kidneys, and operative treatment of the urinary system, and his name remains attached to several medical terms and procedures. His career shows how quickly surgery was changing in his era, as newer methods and more specialized branches of medicine began to take shape.
He also turned to medical history, writing Geschichte der neueren deutschen Chirurgie, a study of modern German surgery. Küster died in Berlin on April 19, 1930, leaving behind a body of work that reflects both the practical and intellectual side of medicine in his time.