Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland

Vocation

Notable

German physician famous as the most eminent practical physician of his time in Germany and as the author of numerous works displaying extensive reading and a cultivated critical faculty. Hufeland received his medical education at the University of Göttingen. He was a professor at the University of Jena (from 1793) and chief physician of the Charité Hospital in Berlin (from 1800). He helped to found the University of Berlin, where he was a professor in the department of internal medicine from 1810. He established the Polyclinic Institute in Berlin. Hufeland rejected the metaphysical teachings of S. Hahnemann and F. Broussais, but he borrowed from them some points that he regarded as rational. Based on these propositions, he created an eclectic system in which he often mixed contradictory teachings and points of view. The great merit of Hufeland is that he laid the foundation for a special branch of biology and medicine, gerontology, which he called macrobiotics. In his work The Art of Prolonging Human Life (1797), which played a major role in the elaboration of ideas concerning the factors that influence longevity and in the shaping of the teaching on longevity, he included comprehensive recommendations on personal hygiene, physical labor, rest, alternation of physical labor and rest, diet, and the control of excesses. The book enjoyed great favor and was translated into Russian (five editions, 1805–56) and all the European languages. Hufeland promoted and introduced vaccination. He died on 25 August 1836 around 3pm in Berlin, aged 74. Link to Wikipedia biography