Rudolph Nissen was a surgeon who chaired surgery departments in Turkey, the United States and Switzerland. The Nissen fundoplication, a surgical procedure for the treatment of gastroesophageal reux disease (heartburn), is named after him. In 1948, he performed an abdominal surgery that extended the life of Albert Einstein by several years.
Dr. Rudolph Nissen (1896–1981) rst performed the procedure in 1955 and published the results of two cases in a 1956 Swiss Medical Weekly. Nissen originally called the surgery “gastroplication.” The procedure has borne his name since it gained popularity in the 1970’s Einstein’s aneurysm repair.
In December 1948, Nissen admitted Albert Einstein to a Jewish Hospital for removal of intestinal cysts. However, the scientist was also suffering from an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). An aneurysm is a dilatation that occurs in a blood vessel. In the portion of the aorta that runs through the abdomen, aneurysms are typically asymptomatic until rupture is imminent. AAA rupture can cause immediate death from exsanguination (massive blood loss). Denitive surgical treatment for AAA had not been devised in the 1940s.
Beginning in 1943, reinforcement with cellophane had been used to induce brosis in the vessel, decreasing the risk of rupture. Nissen wrapped the aneurysm with cellophane and Einstein recovered from the surgery.
Upon his hospital discharge, Einstein was surrounded by photographers and he was photographed with his tongue sticking out at them. He sent an autographed newspaper clipping of the photo to Nissen with the inscription “To Nissen my tummy / the world my tongue.” Einstein lived for several years after Nissen wrapped his AAA in cellophane. Einstein died in a Princeton, New Jersey hospital in 1955. An autopsy conducted by pathologist Thomas Harvey showed that he died of a leaking AAA.
By the time of Einstein’s death, surgical AAA repair was technically possible but still very uncertain. The surgeon who saw Einstein in Princeton, Dr Frank Glenn of New York Hospital, proposed surgery. Einstein was in his seventies and he elected to die peacefully rather than undergo surgery. “I want to go when I want,” Einstein told his physicians. He told his secretary Helen Dukas, “I can die without the help of the doctors.” He also told her that it was “tasteless to prolong life articially. I have done my share. It is time to go. I will do it elegantly.”