History of Medicine
Constantin Dimitrescu-Severeanu is for us, contemporary Romanian
surgeons, a monumental figure, perceived unjustly as old, originating in
the museum's halls of national medicine, someone like Péan, Volkmann,
Nélaton, Guyon, Langenbeck, Esmarch or Billroth to countries where
they lived. Nationally, his figure has been somewhat pushed into the
past by Thoma Ionescu the creator of the National School of Surgery.
It is necessary to look by comparison between the brilliance and
modernism of Thoma Ionescu and Severeanu`s efforts to get us out, like
Moses from the egyptian slavery, out of the old ways of surgery without
anesthesia, antiseptics, without asepsia, when opening of the womb, the
chest and cranial cavity was not even thought by someone. Severeanu
said that in 1864 and Thoma Ionescu returned to Bucharest from Paris
after 30 years in 1895, when the big leap and synchronization with
European medicine had been done.
His childhood in the Cioponea family, a hardworking family of 12
children, from Baltaţi (Mehedinţi) is well known. Constantin came
into the world on May 4, 1840, beginning primary school at the age of
13 in Turnu Severin, then at the age of 15 enrolling at Davila School
and then performing his last 2 years as a student in Paris where he
got his PhD in 1864. He was then a secondary physician at Colentina
Hospital, then primary physician at Colţea Hospital (1869), where
there was a surgery department headed by Professor Nicolae
Turnescu, the firs Dean (1869) of the newly founded Faculty of
Medicine in Bucharest. At Colţea Hospital he will lead for 40 years
(1870-1910) a department of surgery in which his great achievements
will be done.
His first impressive surgery took place at Colentina Hospital where he
performed a chelotomy attended by his teachers, Turnescu, Polizu and
Capşa and after that, as a sign of appreciation, Carol Davila invited him
to dinner. His second impressive moment was the incision of a
Chirurgia (2017) 112: 7-11
No. 1, January - February
Copyright© Celsius
http://dx.doi.org/10.21614/chirurgia.112.1.7
Professor Constantin Dimitrescu-Severeanu
Our Father and Contemporary (1840-1930)
Vasile Sârbu
1
, Silviu Constantinoiu
2
1
Faculty of Medicine, Ovidius University, Constanåa, Romania
2
General and Esophageal Surgery Clinic, Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest, Romania
Corresponding author:
Professor Vasile Sârbu
Faculty of Medicine, Ovidius Univeristy
Constanta, Romania
E-mail: vasilesarbu_cta@yahoo.com
Received: 27.01.2017
Accepted: 14.02.2017
Chirurgia, 112 (1), 2017 7