[In memory of August Bier (1861-1949)]

"A professor is a gentleman of different opinion" this striking and sarcastic remark, which the surgeon August Bier often quoted in his lectures, can be applied to the pioneer of the lumbar and intravenous local anesthesia himself. Bier, born in 1861, in many ways influenced surgery, anesthesia and general medicine with his contributions through the decades. A student of the Kieler surgeon Friedrich von Esmarch, he habilitated after only two years. 1899 he received a call to the university in Greifswald, went to Bonn University in 1903 and finally in 1907 became the successor of Ernst von Bergmann in the acclaimed Klinik in der Ziegelstrasse in Berlin. The philosophic thoughts of Heraklit and Hippokrates influenced his own teleologic view of medicine and his (Reizkörper) and hyperemia therapy. He kept his interest in both subjects as well as in homeopathy throughout his life; an interest few of his surgical colleagues shared. His Chirurgische Operationslehre (Surgical Theory) however, which appeared in countless editions, met with undiluted consent. His publications on philosophic questions are still of interest today, as are his concepts on forestry which he could apply to his own estate in Sauen. When Bier was emerited in 1932 he was almost completely retired and lived on his estate. He dies there in 1949 at the age or 88, respected world-wide as a bionomic thinker, surgeon and expert on forestry. In the following we wish to point out the lesser known aspects of the surgeon August Bier, who enriched our special field by introducing spinal and intravenous anesthesia into it at the turn of the century. It is not possible to acknowledge all of the achievements of this restlessly working, sometimes difficult surgeon, this scientist to whom always could be applied: "A professor is a gentleman of different opinion!"