Heinrich Ernst Albers-Schönberg (January 21, 1865 – June 4, 1921) was a German gynecologist and radiologist who was a native of Hamburg.
He studied medicine at the Universities of Tübingen and Leipzig, where in 1891 he earned his medical doctorate. From 1892 to 1894 he was an assistant at Hamburg-Eppendorf Hospital, and afterwards worked as an assistant to gynecologist Paul Zweifel (1848-1927) at the University of Leipzig. Soon afterwards he worked in Hamburg as a gynecologist and obstetrician, and in 1897 established an x-ray clinic and laboratory with internist Georg Deycke (1865-1938). In 1903 he was appointed radiologist at St. Georg Hospital in Hamburg, and in 1905 was a founding member of Deutsche Röntgen-Gesellschaft (The German Roentgen Society). In 1919 he became a full professor and chair of radiology at the newly established University of Hamburg.
Albers-Schönberg was an early specialist in the field of radiological medicine. In 1903 he discovered that exposure to radiation caused damage to the reproductive glands of rabbits. He is credited with providing a description of osteopetrosis, which is sometimes referred to as "Albers-Schönberg disease". In 1903 he introduced a device that provided clarity and intensity of x-ray images by filtering out oblique rays.
With Georg Deycke he founded the journal Fortschritte auf dem Gebiete der Röntgenstrahlen, and in 1903 published his best known work, a book on radiological techniques called Die Röntgentechnik - Lehrbuch für Ärzte und Studierende.
References
- Parts of this article are based on a translation of an article from the German Wikipedia.
- Heinrich Albers-Schönberg @ Who Named It
- Albers-Schönberg, Heinrich Ernst - Onmeda: Medizin & Gesundheit (biography translated from German)