Note 163 — Chapter X

Wawruch was a native of Nemtschütz in Moravia. At Olmütz he was a student of theology, but before consecration to the priesthood he came to Vienna as tutor and there decided to abandon the church for medicine. In the course of time he became assistant and also son-in-law to Professor Hildebrand, the director of the General Hospital. Thence he went to Prague as professor of general pathology and pharmacology and, returning to Vienna, became professor of special pathology and medical clinics in the surgical department of the Hospital. He died in 1842. He was accused of adhering to old-fashioned theories in his practice and of having been antagonistic to the determinations of pathological anatomy, and the criticisms of von Breuning and others have pursued him through all the books devoted to Beethoven’s life; yet the scientific determinations of to-day offer justification of his diagnosis and treatment of Beethoven’s case so far as it is possible to judge at this late day.