Ludwig Sallmann

Born:	06-08-1892
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled teacher

Ludwig SALLMANN (born on June 8^th, 1892 in Vienna) was lecturer ('Dozent') for Augenheilkunde at the Medical School of the University of Vienna. He was persecuted in times of Nazism because of his political orientation lost his position and was thrown out of the university on December 2^nd, 1938. Sallmann attended the state secondary school in Prague as well as the state secondary school in Vienna’s 18^th district and in 1911 enrolled at the medical faculty of the University of Vienna. In 1914 he joined the navy and took part in the First World War. After the end of the war he returned to his studies and obtained his doctorate in 1919. Following this, he worked as an assistant doctor at the 3^rd Medical Clinic and then at the 2nd University Eye Clinic in Vienna in the same position beginning in November 1919. Here he was an associate assistant from May 1922 until March 1930 and was made an unsalaried assistant in April 1930. For one year, he acted as head of the Union Medical College in Beijing, and again became an associate assistant at the 2^nd University Eye Clinic upon his return. ^[1] In 1938/39 Sallmann was chairman of the ophthalmological department of the Kaiserin-Elisabeth hospital in Vienna. ^[2] His venia was revoked for "racial" reasons in 1938, ^[3] and he emigrated to the United States in the following year. Here he at first worked as director of the laboratory at the Hermann Knapp Memorial Eye Hospital in New York, after which he joined Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1940. For five years he worked as a Research Associate and Research Assistant for ophthalmology at the College and was a member of the Department of Ophthalmological Research from 1946 until 1955. In 1945 he became an associate professor and in 1955 a full professor of ophthalmology. Apart from his function at Columbia University, Sallmann also was active at the Vanderbilt Eye Clinic of the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York, which he headed from 1956 until 1970. His scientific work was not put on hold, however, and he continued to conduct neurophysiological research at the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke. ^[4] In 1960 he had been in negotiations with the University of Vienna concerning the staffing of the 2^nd Eye Clinic, but they failed due to an insufficient reimbursement of the moving costs. ^[5] Among other things, Sallmann was a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, a member of the American Ophthalmology Society, an honorary doctor of the Universities of Marseille (1952) and Vienna (1969) and bearer of the Braille Award of the National Society for Prevention of Blindness (1959). ^[6] He deceased in 1975.

Lit.: Austrian State Archive (OeStA) / AVA, PA Sallmann; ROEDER 1983; MERINSKY 1980; MUEHLBERGER 1993, 30; ARIAS 2005; UB MedUni Wien/van Swieten Blog.

Andreas Huber (translated by Thomas Rennert)

---