Jean Hamburger

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Jean Hamburger (1909-1992) was a distinguished French physician, surgeon and essayist. He is particularly known for his contribution to nephrology, and for having performed the first renal transplantation in France in 1952.

Hamburger is father of the well-known French singer-songwriter, Michel Berger.

1 Biography
2 Published works
3 Recognition & Awards
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Hamburger was born in Paris on (15 July 1909.

Together with René Kuss, Hamburger defined the precise methods and rules for conducting renal transplantation surgery, and is atrributed with founding the medical discipline of nephrology.

In 1952, he performed the first successful renal transplant surgery in France, on a 16 year old carpenter, Marius Renard who damaged his only kidney when he fell off scaffolding, using a kidney donated by the subject's mother. The organ failed after a record three weeks due to rejection.

In 1955, he created the very first articifial kidney. Hamburger is credited with major breakthroughs in renal transplants: first prolonged success in 1953, first unqualified success between twins in 1959 et non-twins in 1962.

He also authored basic research on the immunological basis of kidney disease, graft immunology and auto-immune diseases.

Hamburger died on 1 February 1992.

[edit] Published works

1972 La Puissance et la Fragilité (Flammarion)
1975 Dictionnaire de médecine, préface et direction (Flammarion)
1976 L’Homme et les Hommes (Flammarion)
1979 Demain, les autres (Flammarion)
1981 Un jour, un homme... (Flammarion)
1982 Introduction au langage de la médecine (Flammarion)
1983 Le journal d’Harvey (Flammarion)
1984 La Raison et la Passion (Le Seuil)
1985 Le Dieu foudroyé (Flammarion)
1986 Le Miel et la Ciguë (Le Seuil)
1988 Monsieur Littré (Flammarion)
1988 La plus belle aventure du monde (Gallimard)
1988 Zouchy et quelques autres histoires (Flammarion)
1989 Dictionnaire promenade (Le Seuil)
1990 La Puissance et la Fragilité. Vingt ans après (Flammarion)
1990 Le Livre de l’aventure humaine (Gallimard)
1991 Les Belles Imprudences, Réflexion sur la condition humaine (Odile Jacob)

[edit] Recognition & Awards

He was elected to life membership of the Académie française on 18 April 1985 (Seat 4), to succeed Pierre Emmanuel, in an official ceremony which took place on 16 January 1986 (Upon his death, Cardinal Decourtray was elected to fill his seat on 1 July, 1993).