Philipp Franz von Walther

Philipp Franz von Walther was a German surgeon and ophthalmologist.

Biography

He was born in Burrweiler. He studied medicine in Vienna under Georg Joseph Beer and Johann Peter Frank, obtaining his medical doctorate in 1803 from the University of Landshut. He subsequently served as a professor at the Universities of Bamberg, Landshut, Bonn, and Munich. Among his better known students were Johannes Peter Müller at Bonn, and Johann Lukas Schönlein and Cajetan von Textor at Landshut.
Walther is best known for his pioneer work in ophthalmology and ophthalmic surgery. In 1826 he described the first tarsorrhaphy for closure of a portion of the eyelids for partial ectropion. In the treatise Ueber die Hornhautflecken, he gave an early account of corneal opacity.
With Karl Ferdinand von Gräfe, he was co-editor of Journal der Chirurgie und Augenheilkunde, an influential journal of surgery and ophthalmology. Walther is credited with performing numerous experiments involving medical galvanism.
He died in Munich.

Selected works

Ueber die therapeutische Indication und den Techniscismus der galvanischen Operation, 1803.Ueber das Alterthum der Knochenkrankheiten, 1825.Ectropicum anguli oculi externi, eine neue Augenkrankheit und die Tarsoraphie, eine neue Augen-Operation, 1826.Ueber die Trepanation nach Kopfverletzungen, 1831.Die Lehre vom schwarzen Star und seine Heilart; Pathologie und Therapie der Amarose, 1840.Ueber die Amaurose nach Superciliar-Verletzungen, 1840.Ueber die Revaccination, 1844.Ueber die Hornhautflecken, 1845.Kataraktologie, Beobachtung einer Cornea conica im chirurgisch-ophthalmologischen Klinikum in München, 1846.Wieder-Anheilung einer ganz abgehauenen Nase. and Nachricht über die Anheilung einer, zwei Stunden lang völlig abgetrennten Nase; ein Sendschreiben des R.Markiewicz an C.F. Graefe.