Elisabeth’s brother Charles Theodore inherited the dukedom and became a distinguished eye surgeon. He fought in the Bavarian army on the side of Austria in the 1866 war with Prussia before starting his medical studies. These were interrupted by the 1870 Franco-Prussian war when he became Colonel of the Bavarian Light Horse.
Karl Theodore gained his medical degree in 1872 and then took up ophthalmology being apprenticed in Munich and Vienna. He first practised in Menton before converting his castle at Tegernsee into an eye hospital. Karl Theodore also started a clinic in Munich, where he performed 5,600 operations, often free of charge, of which half were for cataracts. His second wife the infanta Maria of Portugal acted as his nursing assistant.
He had one daughter by his first wife Princess Sophie of Saxony and five by his second marriage.
Image Credits: Wikimedia.
