Konrad Johann Martin Langenbeck

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Konrad Johann Martin Langenbeck (December 5, 1776 - January 24, 1851) was a German surgeon and optician who was a native of Horneburg. He studied medicine at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, and in 1802 worked under August Gottlieb Richter (1742-1812) at the Georg-August University of Göttingen. Except for a stint as general-surgeon of the Hannoverschen Army in 1814, he spent the rest of his professional career in Göttingen. In 1807 he created his own institute for surgery and ophthalmology. At Göttingen, two of his students were his nephew Bernhard von Langenbeck (1810-1887) and surgeon Louis Stromeyer (1804-1876).

Langenbeck was considered one of the best surgeons during the first half of the 19th century. He was especially known for his speed and precision regarding amputations, and was an early practitioner of an operative technique that used a soft-tissue flap to cover the bone without tension. This procedure is called the flap amputation. Among his many writings is the four volume Die Bibliothek für Chirurgie und Ophthalmologie that was published between 1806 and 1813. He also penned an early work (1805) on neurology called Tractatus anatomico-chirurgicus de nervis cerebri. After Langenbeck's death, he was succeeded by Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle (1809-1885) as chair of anatomy at Göttingen.