Bernhard Heine
German physician, bone specialist and inventor of the osteotome (1800-1846)
Bernhard Heine (20 August 1800, Schramberg (Black Forest) – 31 July 1846, Glockenthal near Thun (Switzerland)) was a German medical doctor, bone specialist and the inventor of the osteotome, a medical tool for cutting bones.
Apprenticeship in Würzburg
Bernhard Heine was born on 20 August 1800, the son of a tanner in Schramberg. At the age of ten (according to other references, thirteen) years he was apprenticed to his uncle Johann Georg Heine in Würzburg as an orthopaedic mechanic. Without any enrolment he later attended lectures in medicine at the University of Würzburg.
After a number of journeys he took over his own department in his uncle's orthopaedic institute. When Johann Georg moved to the Netherlands in 1829, Bernhard - together with his cousin Joseph Heine - became the head of the Würzburg institution.
In 1837 Bernhard Heine married his cousin (Johann Georg's daughter) Anna Heine (born 1801).
Inventing the osteotome
In 1830, after years of research and development, Heine presented a medical tool to his colleagues. It was a "bone saw", which he called the "osteotome", and which revolutionized surgical treatment. His invention was a great success among medical experts all over Europe.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q96790. VIAF identifies the subject as 30333711. The Library of Congress control number is nr88007853. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1800, 1846, 1829 and 1837.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bernhard Heine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.