Johann Ulrich Bilguer

Born in Chur in 1720, Bilguer studied medicine in Basel and Strasbourg and also spent time in Paris before entering military service as a surgeon. He served first with Württemberg and then, from the 1740s, in Prussian service, taking part in wartime campaigns and later rising to become Generalchirurg of the Prussian army.

He is best remembered for his 1761 dissertation arguing against the frequent use of amputation. In that work, drawn from military medicine and battlefield experience, he maintained that many limbs could be saved and that surgery should be less quick to remove them. That position made his name closely associated with an early move toward conservative surgery.

Bilguer died in Berlin in 1796. For listeners coming to his work today, he stands out as a practical eighteenth-century medical writer whose reputation rests on questioning a harsh medical habit and insisting on greater caution in the treatment of the wounded.