Egon Ranzi

Egon Ranzi was born on 3 March 1875 in Vienna, where he also studied and received his doctorate. Like von Haberer and later Breitner, he first went to the famous surgeon Eiselsberg in Vienna from 1902 to 1919. In 1909 he habilitated, and three years later he was appointed associate professor and chairman of the first surgical department of the Rudolf Foundation in Vienna. In 1924 he was appointed full professor in Innsbruck, where he stayed for 12 years and which he only left when he was able to become Eiselsberg's successor in Vienna. As much as he was pleased to become the successor of his revered teacher, he often longed to return to Innsbruck - as mentioned in Prof. Huber's obituary - and described the 12 years here as the happiest of his life. Huber said that he was not up to the competitive methods of a city of millions due to his complete lack of talent for self-advertising. In Vienna, he was only granted a short period of time, he retired in 1938 at the age of 64 - forced by the rulers - and died a year later of a kidney disease. Egon Ranzi dealt a lot with the problems of abdominal surgery, especially with surgery of the spleen, liver and pancreas. He promoted thoracic and vascular surgery and was also interested in spinal cord diseases. With Tandler he published an anatomy of the central nervous system. It is especially remarkable that he already did experimental cancer research. Prof. Huber - also a Ranzi student from his time in Innsbruck - writes in an obituary: "We all think with gratitude of the certainly strict, but nevertheless by the spirit of goodness, goodwill and justice filled school, which we went through with him.