[Martin Kirschner: anesthesiologist--intensive care physician--pain therapist]

The development of numerous modern anaesthetic technics and methods in the mid of the twenties and thirties, which had become a main topic of scientific interest in the German-speaking countries, is connected with the name of the surgeon Martin Kirschner. Reputed as an outstanding surgeon at home and abroad, he realised the need of modern anesthetic technics and monitor systems for the further progress in all areas of operative medicine. His research enhanced our knowledge of the mode of action of various anaesthetic procedures and the prevention of iatrogenic complications became a central part of his interest. His concept to use a physician-aided rapid transportation system, so that the emergency physician comes to the patients and not vice versa, has become an integral part of emergency medical system nowadays. Not surprisingly, he asked for a physician-controlled transportation of such "high-risk-patients" with the aid of aeroplanes. Furthermore, he demanded continuous control of vital parameters of such severely injured persons, best realized in an intensive-care unit. Comparably modern were his concepts concerning the perioperative sedation of patients, operated under any kind of local anaesthesia. Recommending advantageous drugs to do so, he suggested the possibility of using a wireless or television set, a technique absolutely new at that time, within the operation theatre. Reviewing Kirschner's contributions to pain alleviation procedures, we can consider him to be a passionate surgeon, but also a surgeon with the deliberations and actions of an anaesthesiologist: "Divinum est, sedare dolorem."