Carl Westphal (physician)

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Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal

Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal (born March 23, 1833 in Berlin ; †  January 27, 1890 in Kreuzlingen near Konstanz) was a German psychiatrist and neurologist.

Westphal first described pseudosclerosis ( Westphal-Strümpell syndrome , a late form of Wilson's disease ), agoraphobia and the autonomic core area of the oculomotor nerve (today as Edinger-Westphal core ) and in 1869 homosexuality under the name "contrary sexual sensation".

Life

Carl Westphal was the son of Otto Westphal's secret medical adviser and his wife Caroline, née Heine. On September 7, 1862, Carl Westphal married Clara Mendelssohn, a daughter of the banker Alexander Mendelssohn and granddaughter of Joseph Mendelssohn .

He went to the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Berlin and then studied medicine in Berlin, Heidelberg and Zurich. He received his doctorate in Berlin in 1855. He then went on a study trip to Vienna and Paris.

In 1858 Westphal became an assistant doctor at the Berlin Charité, among other things in the department for smallpox patients and the department for the mentally ill with Wilhelm Griesinger . In 1861 he completed his habilitation and became a private lecturer in psychiatry at Berlin University. In 1869 he became associate professor and director of the Clinic for Psychiatry and Neurology at the Charité . Westphal was appointed full professor in 1874. He held these positions until 1889. Several important neurologists were among his students, including Arnold Pick (1851 to 1924) and Hermann Oppenheim (1858 to 1919). Carl Wernicke (1848 to 1905) was his assistant.

Carl Westphal's tombstone

The children of Carl and Clara Westphal include the neurologist and psychiatrist Alexander Westphal (1863 to 1941), the wife of Eduard Sonnenburg Anna, née Westphal, (1864 to 1943), the wife of Franz von Mendelssohns Marie, née Westphal, (1867 to 1957) and the lawyer Ernst Westphal (1871 to 1949).

Carl Westphal is buried in Cemetery I of the Jerusalem and New Church Cemeteries in front of the Hallesches Tor in Berlin-Kreuzberg .

Honors

In 1887 he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina .

Fonts

  • [1] The contrary sexual sensation: symptom of a neuropathological (psychopathic) condition in: Archive for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases , Berlin, 1869–70; 2: 73-108.
  • Agoraphobia, a neuropathic phenomenon in: Archive for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases , Berlin, 1871–72; 3: 138-161.
  • Artificial production of epilepsy in guinea pigs. Berl Klin Wchschr 1871; 8: 449 and 460-463
  • Affection of the nervous system after smallpox and typhoid
  • About some movement phenomena (knee and foot phenomena) brought about by mechanical action on tendons and muscles in: Archive for Psychiatrie and Nerve Diseases, Berlin, 1875.5: 803-834.
  • Strange attacks associated with falling asleep in: Archive for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases, Berlin, 1877; 7: 631-635.
  • About a disease of the central nervous system similar to the picture of cerebrospinal gray degeneration without anatomical findings, along with some remarks about paradoxical contractions in: Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, Berlin, 1883; 14: 87-134.
  • Psychiatric treatises. Berlin, A. Hirschwald, 1892. (Vol. 1 of the collected treatises, edited by Alexander Karl Otto Westphal)

literature

  • Georg Korn:  Westphal, Karl . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, p. 204 f.
  • B. Dierse: Carl Westphal (1833-1890) - life and work. Representative of a German scientifically oriented university psychiatry in the 19th century. Diss.med, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald, 1995
  • M. Seidel: Carl Westphal - a progressive university professor of neurology and psychiatry in the 19th century. Psychiatr. Neurol. Med. Psychol. 1986; 38: 733-40
  • F. Kohl: The classic descriptions of claustrophobia by Carl Westphal and Emil Cordes and their significance for the history of the concept and current discussion of anxiety disorders . Psychiatr. Practice. 2001; 28: 3-9
  • Jörg Hutter : Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal , in: Homosexuality. Handbook of Theory and Research History (Ed. Rüdiger Lautmann ), Campus Verlag , Frankfurt / New York 1993, pp. 39–41.
  • Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Westphal, Carl Friedrich Otto. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1482 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Westphal, Carl Friedrich Otto. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 1482 f .; here: p. 1482.
  2. ^ List of members Leopoldina, Carl Westphal
personal data
SURNAME Westphal, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Westphal, Carl Friedrich Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychiatrist and neurologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1833
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH January 27, 1890
Place of death Kreuzlingen near Constance