Vincenz Czerny: carrying concepts into the 21st century

Vincenz Czerny, as a pupil of Theodor Billroth and as head of the surgical departments of the Universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg between 1871 and 1906, markedly influenced the surgical development of the 19th century. Major contributions to the field of surgery included hernia operations, abdominal surgery and vaginal hysterectomy. Most importantly he recognized that surgery alone would not be able to control cancer and he developed concepts for multimodality treatment.