From 1871 to 1878 he was a professor of surgery at Dorpat. In 1878 he became a professor at Würzburg; in 1882 he relocated to the University of Berlin as a successor to Bernhard von Langenbeck.[1] He continued as a professor of surgery at Berlin for the remainder of his career. Two of his assistants in Berlin were Curt Schimmelbusch (1860–1895) and Friedrich Gustav von Bramann (1854–1913).[2] His son, Gustav von Bergmann (1878–1955) was a noted doctor of internal medicine.