Karl Julius Keim

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Elegy to Prague
FE Binder's wine bar

Karl Julius Keim (born January 18, 1823 in Barby , Province of Saxony , † January 14, 1906 in Magdeburg ) was a German doctor. In his time he was known as a medical and humorous writer. Adolf Siegl, the great chronicler of Prague student life, has erected a small memorial for him.


Keim studied medicine at the Friedrichs University in Halle . In 1844 he became active in the Corps Thuringia Halle (II). He was awarded Dr. med. Doctorate and licensed as a doctor in 1849 . Like many young doctors, he came to Charles University in the early 1850s . At its heyday in the middle of the 19th century, Prague's medical faculty attracted many more doctors from Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands for practical training than the Viennese. Keim is neither in the lecturer's nor in the student register of Prague University. After the exams he opened a doctor's practice in Magdeburg. He played an outstanding role in the Magdeburg Medical Society. In Magdeburg, too, he pursued his inclination for forging. Most of his humorous poems played in the medical environment - "cheerful jokes at a cheerful feast", which he in the circle of friends of the Magdeburg Medical Society

his old mold,
his good Pegasus,
let them pull out of the stable.

His pseudonym “Supinator longus” is beautiful self-irony . The "long external turner" refers to the supinator muscle , which rotates the bent forearm outwards and brings the hand into a take position. Keim was a city councilor in Magdeburg for a while. Characterized as the secret medical council , he died four days before his 79th birthday.

Elegy to Prague

Elegy to Prague

On May 31, 1853, Keim wrote the Elegy to Prague in Ferdinand E. Binder's wine tavern on the Old Town Square . It is recorded in the Kommers books of the time as the “Prague Song” . It is said to have been sung after Prince Eugene, the noble knight . On the other hand, Paul Nettl proved that the medical song is based on a melody by Carl Kuntze . It is similar to the beginning of Beethoven's Andante favori (WoO 57). The owner of the Binder wine tavern had the elegy printed and presented it as a souvenir to the “Doctors of Medicine” who visited him. In the Kommers books the 3rd stanza relating to the building of chastity was reproduced in Greek letters; The German text was only published in later editions. In Prague, the women's departments were spatially separated at that time, obstetrics in the Kaiser Franz Joseph Pavilion and gynecology in one building on the aforementioned Windberg. Apolligen means the Gifthutte at St. Apollinaris .

1. Towards Pragien, towards Pragien,
you shall bear me Musengaul,
where the guilders go,
where with Germany's blond sons
the beautiful Slavic tribe
only get on one point!

2. To the hospital, the general one,
I should accelerate my foot,
where the young man learns doctors,
where even without venae cesarean section
the inflammatory affectio is
removed from the pleura.

3. On the Windberg, on the steep one,
I would like to hurry to the virgins,
with a spacious utero,
inside the umbilical cord, the chaste one, the embryo hopping smiling
after the placental

4. To Apolligen, to Apolligen,
I also want to troll in the spirit
where the diner atrophies,
where the Heska Holka leads
to the dance to the sound of the cheerful polka of
the primary on the ribbon.

5. I would like to go up to the bastion,
where the autumn wind with chestnuts aims
at the head of the
wanderer , there where under velvet mantillas
for the Lustwandlör in silence
the chlorosis feels humanly.

6. Finally, to the noble Bindinger, too,
I would like to be a scout
where the hare hops in gold,
where the cheerful Tokay's
cool, hot bonfire
willingly slips through the pharynx.

The heart will always long for those who are wistful, it
knocks again at home,
here, where now with wine flashes
aborted in bad jokes
Doctor medicinae germ.

8. Doctor, surgeon and
also sworn
childbirth for children from the Prussian monarchy,
Prague in May on the last date,
in the year post Christum natum
eighteen hundred, fifty, three.


1st stanza: Pegasus (mythology) , guilder , Slavs
2nd verse: Kais. Royal General hospital in Prague, venae sectio = vein opening = bloodletting , affection , pleura
3rd stanza: uterus , umbilical cord , placenta , embryo
4th verse: Atrophy , Holka = girl , Polka , Primarius = chief physician
5th verse: bastion, mantilla , strolling , chlorosis
6th stanza: a golden hare was the house emblem of the Binder wine tavern, Tokaj , pharynx = throat
7th stanza: abort = give away
8th stanza: deliverer = obstetrician ; Keim's homeland, the province of Saxony, belonged to Prussia


Joseph Willomitzer , editor-in-chief of the German Bohemia , wrote a ninth stanza: In the German-Czech nationality conflict , it was an allusion to the custom of some Czechs to throw blown eggs filled with iron lacquer at the Habsburg black and yellow street signs.

Towards Prague, towards Prague,
you ought to, o muse horse, carry me,
where typhus is always rampant,
where there are boards white-blue-red,
yellow ones too - but the ones with feces
and smeared with iron lacquer.


When he was young, Keim had published a number of short stories . Long forgotten today, Der Frack , a one-act play , went over several stages in the 1850s. Two taunts and a series of lyric poems followed. Keim's contemporaries saw the Parasite Song as his best work. The song about “Flotten Burschen”, which he had written for the 25th foundation festival of the Magdeburg Medical Society, was felt to be just as successful. There is no evidence of Karl Julius Keim in the archives of the German Literature Archive in Marbach . It is listed in the World Biographical Information System Online (WBIS).

  • Man and the parasite . Magdeburg 1872.
  • Four decades of internal therapy . Lecture given at the meeting of the Medical Association of Magdeburg District in November 1886.


  • Adolf Siegl : The Elegy to Prague by Dr. med. Germ . Once and Now, Yearbook of the Association for Corps Student History Research, Vol. 18 (1973), pp. 197-201.


  1. Dissertation: De carcinomate bulbi oculi humani dissertatio inauguralis medica quam ... in Academia Fridericiana Halensi cum Vitebergensi consociata ad summos in medicina et chirurgia honores rite adipiscendos the XXIX. m. decembris a. MDCCCXLVIII una cum thesibus defendet [1] .
  2. ^ On September 20, 1849, Carl Spitzweg visited the wine tavern.
  3. “In Prussia there is a strong mixture of Slavic and Germanic elements. This is a major cause of their state usefulness. They have something of the docility of the Slavic nature and of the masculinity of the Teutons. "(Otto v. Bismarck to JC Bluntschli, 1861)
  4. The Prague bastion, which was still preserved at that time, was a wide wall. Erected by Oberstburggraf Chotek, it extended from the Karlshofer church to the Korntor, from there to the Rosstor and far beyond the Poritscher Tor to the Moldau. The beautiful grounds were very popular with the Prague residents. From the Hibernergasse they strolled up the Bastei to visit the Café Bohémia. In February 1863, the Kommers was celebrated in honor of State Minister Anton von Schmerling in the great hall on the first floor . The first mensures in Prague are said to have been fought in Café Bohémia.

Individual evidence

  1. Biographical Lexicon of Outstanding Doctors of All Times and Nations (Reprint 1962), Vol. 3, p. 497
  2. a b Boeik, Münchner Medizinische Wochenschrift XX p. 975
  3. Kösener corps lists 1910, 109/12.
  4. ^ Adolf Kussmaul : memories of an old doctor's youth . Stuttgart 1899
  5. Something about the supinator longus, but nothing medical, but something poetic . Academic monthly notebooks, summer semester 1894, No. 121, XI. Volume, p. 7.
  6. ^ Wilhelm Klein: 80th anniversary of an old Prague student song . Deutsche Hochschulwarte, 13th year, September 1933, issue 9, p. 104
  7. ^ Paul Nettl: Prague in the student song . Robert Lerche Publishing House, Munich 1964.
  8. ^ A b Adolf Siegl: The Elegy to Prague by Dr. med. Germ . Einst und Jetzt, Vol. 18 (1973), pp. 197-201.
  9. WBIS