[Medical Ischl. Brine bath, imperial summer residence, military city]

In 1823 Josef Goetz and Franz Wirer v. Rettenbach established the first brine bath at Ischl. Having finished a cure there, Archduchess Sophie, who had been childless, gave birth to a son, who subsequently became Emperor Franz Joseph. For 65 years (as from 1849) Ischl was his summer residence. Wirer, Josef Brenner-Felsach and Max Mayer founded the first hospitals for the inhabitants of Ischl. Another medical institution was the Emperor Franz Joseph Children's Hospital of the City of Vienna at Ischl/Sulzbach. In 1943 the military hospital of the German Air Force for treatment of airmen with injuries of the brain, spinal cord and nerves was transferred to Ischl from Berlin. Under Dietrich Wolfgang Krüger it became the cradle of Austrian neurosurgery after the war (till 1968). The neurologist Karl Theodor Dussik, head of the neurological ward of the Military Hospital at Ischl was the first to use ultrasound for the diagnosis of diseases of the central nervous system. He is internationally regarded to be the father of ultrasonic diagnosis.