Hermann Adolph Wülfing-Lüer • LITFL • Medical Eponym Library

Jeanne Amélie Lüer — Jeanne Amelie Lüer

Hermann Adolph Wülfing-Lüer (1836 – 1910) German Surgical instrument manufacturer.

Famous for being the husband of Jeanne Amélie Lüer (1842-1909).

Hermann Adolph Wülfing married Jeanne Amélie Lüer (daughter of Amatus Lüer) in 1867. Hermann worked on the business side of the factory, and Jeanne on the creative side and in the factory

It is most probable that Jeanne Amélie Lüer invented the original Lüer syringe in 1895 and her husband Hermann Adolph Wülfing patented and marketed the syringe

Biography

Born 14 March 1836, Barmen in Westphalia
Died 1 February 1910, Paris

Key Medical Attributions

Georges Guillaume Amatus Lüer (1802-1883) (d’instruments de chirurgie, chevalier de la légion d’honneur) was born in Germany and traveled to Paris in 1834. He worked briefly with Swiss-born French surgical instrument maker Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière (1803-1876) and set up up surgical instrument store ‘Maison Lüer, sur la Place de l’École de Médecine’ in 1837

Hermann Adolph Wülfing married Jeanne Amélie Lüer (daughter of Amatus Lüer) in 1867. Hermann worked on the business side of the factory, and Jeanne on the creative side and in the factory

Jeanne, helped by a glassblower named Fournier, developed a ‘two piece graduated, all-glass sterilizable syringe with a tight-fitting ground glass barrel’. Hermann filed multiple patents to protect the invention between 1895-1897. The Lüer’s met with Maxwell W. Becton and Fairleigh S. Dickinson who purchased the Lüer syringe and set up the Becton Dickinson (BD) surgical equipment company in New Jersey, USA.

Dickinson patented the Luer-lok in 1925, a steel fitting that included the tapered tube at its centre to allow a needle to be locked in place securely with a single twist.[The BD Yale Luer-Lok Syringe]