HENSCHEL, ELIAS H.:
German physician; born at Breslau April 4, 1755; died in 1839; father of A. W. Henschel. He commenced life as an errand-boy, and for some time was valet to a physician. He did not, however, miss any opportunity of acquiring knowledge, in which he was encouraged and materially aided by a professor of anatomy named Morgenbesser, who also induced several of his coreligionists to take a substantial interest in him. Henschel was enabled to commence the study of anatomy at the age of twenty-five. In 1785 he entered the University of Halle (M.D. 1787). Henschel devoted himself especially to obstetrics, and was appointed public accoucheur at Breslau. He was one of the first to treat the thigh tumor of lying in women as a special malady, and was instrumental in introducing vaccination in Silesia. Notwithstanding his numerous duties and extensive practise, Henschel spent a great deal of his time in the hospital for the Jewish poor, acted as an accoucheur in many benevolent institutions, and, in the troublous times of 1813, added to his other activities the care of a lazaretto at Neustadt containing 228 beds. He also rendered useful services during a cholera epidemic; and about this time he published his "Guter Rath bei Annährung der Cholera" (Breslau, 1831). He also wrote "Ueber die Gewöhnlichsten Krankheiten der Schwangern" (ib. 1797) and "Ein Beitrag zur Heilung der Kopfgeschwulst der Neugeborenen Kinder" (1828).
- Hirsch, Biographisches Lexikon der Hervorragenden Aerzte.
