Dr. Christian Fenger was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on November 3, 1840. As a young student he participated in the war of 1864. In 1867 he received his medical degree. For two years he worked as an assistant at V. Meyer's ear clinic and at Frederik's Hospital. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, he was an ambulance surgeon with the Red Cross. From 1871 to 1874 he was resident physician, and from 1873 to 1874 lecturer, at the Municipal Hospital in Copenhagen. In 1875 he went to Egypt, where the became a member of the sanitary board and physician for the district of the caliph in Cairo.

In 1877 he came to Chicago, where, a year later, he became a member of the staff of the Cook County Hospital. In 1880 he became curator of the Rush Medical College Museum. He was made professor of clinical surgery in 1884 at the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons, in 1893 at Chicago Medical 2College, and, in 1899, at Rush Medical College.

He is also on the staff of the Cook County Hospital, the Presbyterian Hospital, the Norwegian Tabitha Hospital, the Lutheran, and the German Hospital.

Dr. Fenger was the man that introduced to the great Northwest the antiseptic treatment of wounds.