Eduard Sonnenburg

Vocation

Notable

German surgeon whose name is associated with "Sonnenberg's sign", an indicator defined as bloody leukocytosis seen in appendicitis with localized peritonitis. After receiving his medical doctorate in 1872, he spent several years as an assistant to Georg Albert Lücke at the surgical clinic in Strassburg. In 1876 he qualified as a lecturer of surgery at the university. In 1880 he relocated to Berlin, where he worked under Bernhard von Langenbeck and Ernst von Bergmann. In 1883 he became an associate professor at the University of Berlin, and in 1890 was appointed director of the surgical department at the Krankenhaus Moabit. In 1913 he became an honorary full professor at the university. He was a founding member in 1886 of the Freie Vereinigung der Chirurgen Berlins (Free Association of Berlin Surgeons), an organization known today as the Berliner Chirurgische Gesellschaft. He was a son-in-law of neurologist Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal. He died on 25 May 1915 in Bad Wildungen. Link to Wikipedia biography