Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885

The well known surgeon, Theodor Billroth, was born on the island of Rügen in 1829. He showed great talent and liking for music, and it was the wish of his father, who was a minister, that he should cultivate this taste and become an artist; but the great masters of medicine, Johannes Mueller, Meckel v. Hemsbach, R. Wagner, Traube, and Schönlein, who were Billroth's instructors at Greifswald, Göttingen, and Berlin, discovered his great talent for surgery and medicine, and induced him to adopt this profession. It was particularly the late Prof. Baum who influenced Billroth to make surgery a special study, and he was Billroth's first special instructor.