Born 31 July 1860 at Steinhaus, Upper Austria, the second son of Freiherr von Eiselsberg, inspector of ordnance in the Austrian army, and Marie, his wife, daughter of Peter, Freiherr Pirquet von Cesenatico. A somewhat delicate child he passed through the seven-years' course at the Gymnasium without any special distinction, though he came under the notice of several stimulating teachers. The education was wide and thorough, so he retained throughout life an interest in comparative anatomy, the classics, and religion. He entered the University of Vienna in the autumn of 1878, studied medicine and graduated MD in 1884, after working under Kölliker at Würzburg and Hermann at Zürich. Through Wölffler and Nicolodoni he was brought to the notice of Billroth, then professor of surgery at Vienna. He soon became Billroth's favourite pupil and acted from time to time as his private assistant, and of Billroth von Eiselsberg always spoke in the highest terms both as a man and a surgeon. In July 1887 he paid his first visit to London, and watched Lister operate at King's College Hospital, situated in the slums of Clare Market, being at the time assistant in the Second Vienna Surgical Clinic. His reputation as a surgeon was so firmly established by July 1893 that he was appointed professor at Utrecht in spite of the fact that he was a Roman Catholic. From Utrecht he went to Königsberg in 1896, and in 1901 he returned to Vienna as professor and head of the First Surgical Clinic. He resigned the post in September 1931, and was immediately appointed emeritus professor of surgery. He was elected an Honorary Fellow at the time of the last International Medical Congress in 1913; he was awarded the Lister medal in 1927 and delivered the memorial address at the College; and in 1932 he gave the Hunterian Society's lecture on "What have X-rays done for diagnosis in surgery?". He married in July 1894 Agnes Pirquet, his first cousin. She died in 1910, leaving a daughter and three sons. He died, as the result of a railway accident caused by sabotage, on 25 October 1939. Coming of an old military family, von Eiselsberg had all the charm and the manner of a cultivated Austrian gentleman. A great traveller to observe the advances of surgery, and a good sportsman, he was equally welcome in England, Scotland, the United States, and France. His last years were saddened by the annexation of Austria, and by the consequent decadence of the great Viennese school of medicine, which he had seen at its zenith. He had for many years the chief surgical practice in the east of Europe and in May 1915 he was called to Athens to operate upon King Constantine, who was then suffering from an empyema. During the war of 1914-18 he did service in connexion with a Red Cross hospital and afterwards as consulting surgeon with a roving commission which took him into Poland. Publications: *Uber Tetanie im Anschluss an Kropfoperationen*. Vienna, 1890. *Die Krankheiten der Schilddrüse*. Stuttgart, 1901 (*Deutsche Chirurgie* 38). *Vorkommen and Behandlung der Tetania parathyreopriva*. Stuttgart, 1908. *Aus der Werkstatt des Chirurgen*. Leipzig and Vienna, 1912. Lister lecture. *Lancet*, 1927, 2, 135. *Lebensweg eines Chirurgen*. Innsbruck and Vienna, 1938. The college library possesses a volume of thirty-five of his reprints, 1889-1913. He was joint-editor of the *Archiv für klinische Chirurgie*, of which three volumes were dedicated to him as Festschriften: vol 110, 1918 on the 25th anniversary of his professorship. Vol 140, 1926 on the 25th anniversary of his directorship of the 1st Vienna Surgical Clinic. Vol 160. 1930 on his 70th birthday. He was also an editor of the *Mitteilungen aus den Grenzgebieten der Medizin and Chirurgie*.