[Carl Ludwig Homburg. A prosector in Goethe's time]

The interest of the medical historian is not necessarily confined to great scholars but can be devoted, as well, to assistant like Homburg who had been not only the prosector of J. C. Loder, anatomist in Jena but had, at the same time, worked for J. W. v. Goethe, Cabinet Minister in Weimar and in charge of Jena University. Some data on the life of prosector C.L. Homburg (who died in 1833) are known to us from notes and letters of Goethe and Loder. Loder had employed the former Berlin student of surgery and barber's assistant to model for him anatomic samples for demonstration and anatomic illustrations and also for his collection. When Loder followed a call to Halle and took his collection of specimens along with him, his successor in Jena had to set up another collection which came under ducal administration. Homburg gave him a helping hand, under Goethe's vigilant control. Loder sold his collection to Russia, some time later, and had an Anatomic Theatre built in Moscow for its accommodation and for anatomic lectures. For that purpose, he called Homburg from Jena and praised him in his public inauguration speech. Two sons and one grandson of Homburg are known to have worked as prosectors, as well, in Moscow, Kharkov, and Kazan.