Eduard von Graefe’s medical thesis described the method devised by his brother, Carl Ferdinand von Graefe (1787-1840), for transfusing blood or other liquids into the blood vessels. The work includes an illustration of the elder Graefe’s transfusion apparatus, which consisted of a silver syringe, a cannula and a trocar. Graefe’s transfusion method involved “opening the vena mediana when uncovered by means of a trocar; after the stiletto is drawn back, the blood or any other liquid is injected by the canule. Should it be necessary to repeat the operation, a lead probe is passed into the opening of the vein, to prevent its obliteration” (Ullersperger, p. 426).

Von Graefe revived rhinoplasty in Germany with this survey of what he called the three methods: the Italian, the Indian, and the “German” method, his own variation on the Italian method. On p. 13 he described the first truly successful case of blepharoplasty, performed in 1809. Latin translation by J. Hecker, 1818. Digital facsimile of the 1818 German edition from the Medical Heritage Library, Internet Archive, at this link.

Graefe devised an operation for the treatment of congenital cleft palate. He reported his first closure of a cleft in the soft palate to the Med.-Chir. Gesellschaft, Berlin, on 27 December 1816 (see J. pract Heilk., 1817, 44, 1St., p. 116). Abridged English translation in No. 5768.2.