[Paskal Joseph Ritter von Ferro, the Reformer of the Austrian Public Health. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his death in consequence of the battle of Wagram against Napoleon].

Paskal Joseph Ferro, born on June 5th, 1753 in Bonn, Germany, in the course of his military service as a surgeon graduated medicine in 1777 in Strasbourg and Vienna. Here initially he worked as a private physician in a hospital. In 1785 he became an assistant to the leading municipal physician, in 1793 he was appointed director of the district hospitals and in 1793 medical official in charge of Lower Austria. In 1795 Ferro was the first on the now created position of "Protomedicus" (director of the health administration) of an Austrian country. His most important acts were the creation of the first medical cold water bath in Austria, the foundation of institutions for the salvation of casualties, the introduction of rooms to lay out the dead in the communities, the organization of dispersed health regulations and their publications for common knowledge and especially the introduction of the smallpox vaccination in 1799 first time outside the UK. After the battle of Wagram (north to Vienna) in the Napoleonic war (July 6th, 1809) he had to care for the wounded and 56,000 dead soldiers on the battle field. In this action he contracted typhoid fever and consequently died on August 21st, 1809.