Alfred Otto Günzburg came from a Jewish merchant family. His parents were the merchant Ludwig Günzburg and his wife Theresa, née Reis.1 Alfred married Luise Daisy Strauss in Frankfurt am Main on April 4, 1894 .2
Co-founder of the Gumpertz Hospital for the Sick in Frankfurt
Günzburg studied medicine in Heidelberg, Marburg and Leipzig. He was licensed and received his doctorate in 1885.3 He worked at the hospital of the Israelite community in Frankfurt am Main after graduating from 1886.4 He held the title of "Sanitätsrat" (medical councilor) and worked primarily in gastroenterology.5 He also held a leading position in the Gumpertzschen Siechenhaus, a Jewish hospital for the poor in Frankfurt – which he had co-founded – from 1888.6He left the Siechenhaus and became chief physician in the hospital of the Jewish community in 1908.7
Escape to Palestine
After the onset of Nazi rule, Günzburg attempted to leave Germany despite his advanced age. He followed his son, the physician Ludwig Günzburg (1895-1976) in 1935, who had already emigrated to Palestine in 1933 and worked as a registered general practitioner, initially under the most basic conditions.8 Günzburg lived in his son's house in Ramot Hasavim and probably no longer practiced medicine himself until his death in 1946.9
Promoter of Nursing
Günzburg was also scientifically active in addition to his practical medical activities. For example, he developed the so-called "Günzburg test" for the detection of free hydrochloric acid in gastric juice10 and described the "Günzburg phenomenon" in duodenal ulcers.11 He also made a name for himself as a promoter of nursing. As founder and longtime chairman of the Frankfurt "Jüdischen Schwesternvereins" (Jewish Nurses Association), he advocated sound training and professionalization in the nursing profession.12