Max Neuburger

Born in Vienna in 1868, Max Neuburger studied medicine at the University of Vienna and first worked as a physician, with early interests in neurology and the physiology of the brain and spinal cord. Before long, though, he turned more and more toward medical history, the subject that would define his career.

At the University of Vienna, he became a leading figure in the history of medicine and is widely associated with building that subject into a proper university institute. He wrote extensively on the development of medicine and is especially remembered for his large-scale historical works, including History of Medicine, which helped bring the story of medical ideas and practice to a wider scholarly audience.

Neuburger lived through enormous upheaval in Austria and Europe, and he died in Vienna in 1955. Today he is remembered both as a physician and as an important historian who helped preserve and interpret medicine's long past.