Czermak Award

During the Czech-German ENT congress a prize is granted for the best presentation of a speaker under the age of 35. Its purpose is to value outstanding scientific achievements of younger colleagues. The prize includes free participation in a scientific course in either the Czech Republic or Germany.

During this year's congress, and for the first time, the prize will be named after the co-developer of the laryngoscopy, Johann Nepomuk Czermak. The name Czermak is like no other connected to the German, Czech and European ENT. Johann Nepomuk Czermak (1828-1873) was born in Prague as the son of a well-known physician. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna, Breslau and Wurzburg (1849). Afterwards, he was an assistant at the Institute of Physiology in Prague and in 1855 became Professor of Zoology at the University of Graz. Subsequently, he was appointed as the chair of the newly established Department of Physiology in Krakow. He left only 2 semesters later to move back to Vienna in the fall of 1857. In the summer of 1858 a position became available at the Department of Physiology in Budapest and Czermak was summoned to be the chairman. He established a private laboratory in Prague with a lecture hall and was concurrently a professor at the University of Jena. On March 27th 1858 Czermak reported on the laryngoscope ("Ueber den Kehlkopfspiegel") in the Vienna Medical Weekly. He demonstrated it at the meeting of the Department of Physiology and Pathology on April 9th 1858. He went on extensive travels to Germany, France, Holland, England, Scotland and Ireland to introduce the method of laryngoscopy, leaving enthusiastic young doctors who adopted the new specialty. (Wikipedia;  Harald Feldmann, Bilder aus der Geschichte der Hals-Nasen-Uhren-Heilkunde, Median Verlag 2003)