Theodor Meynert

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Theodor Meynert, photography by Ludwig Angerer

Theodor Hermann Meynert (born June 15, 1833 in Dresden ; † May 31, 1892 in Klosterneuburg , Lower Austria ) was a German-Austrian psychiatrist , neurologist and neuroanatomist . Meynert was a university professor in Vienna from 1870 until his death.

Alongside Paul Flechsig in Leipzig, Meynert was considered the leading European neuroanatomist. Sigmund Freud , Auguste Forel and Carl Wernicke studied with or worked under him.

biography

Theodor Meynert was born on June 15, 1833 in Dresden as the son of the writer, critic and historian Hermann Meynert (1808–1895). His mother, Marie Meynert (née Emmering), was a singer at the Dresden Opera before she married. Theodor Meynert was three years old when his father was appointed to the editorial office of the Wiener Theaterzeitung and the family moved to Vienna .

After graduating from the Schottengymnasium, Meynert studied medicine at the University of Vienna and was supported by pathologist Carl von Rokitansky (1804–1878). This habilitated him in 1865 for the subject "Structure and function of the brain and spinal cord" . At the same time as his habilitation , Meynert took on the position of secondary doctor and prosector at the Vienna insane asylum. In 1868 he received the license to teach psychiatry. In 1870 he was appointed associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vienna and director of the newly established I. Psychiatric University Clinic of the Vienna General Hospital . In 1873, Meynert was appointed full professor . It was not until twelve years later that his wish for a neurological department for nervous patients to complement his clinic was fulfilled.

Bust of Theodor Meynert in the University of Vienna by Theodor Khuen

Meynert, who, when tense, was extremely irritable and sensitive , long before his death suffered from vertigo and even partial paralysis, which was accompanied by speech disorders and which he tried to hide from his surroundings. Meynert probably adopted a sarcastic attitude when his beloved son, Karl (* 1868), not yet 17 years old, died in 1884 of a lung disease. In April of the last year of his life, Theodor Meynert had to give up the management of the clinic due to illness. He withdrew to his property in Klosterneuburg ( Lower Austria ), Leopoldstrasse 62, apparently recovered and wanted to take up his profession again, all the more so when he found out that he would be elected rector of the university in the fall . A sudden lung affection prevented this, however, and Theodor Meynert passed away in the evening hours of May 31, 1892 in his house in Klosterneuburg. He was buried on June 2, 1892 in Klosterneuburg, Obere Stadt cemetery.

In February 1900 the Austrian sculptor Theodor Khuen (1860–1922) was commissioned by the Ministry of Education to create a bust of Meynert intended for the arcade courtyard of the University of Vienna. There is also a portrait of Theodor Meynert in the children's clinic of the Vienna General Hospital , Währinger Gürtel 18.

In 1894, Meynertgasse in Vienna- Alsergrund (9th district) was named after him; just like Klosterneuburg knows a traffic area with the same name.

His daughter was the narrator and poet Dora von Stockert-Meynert (1870–1947). In 1930 she wrote the biography Theodor Meynert and his time . His grandson was the psychiatrist Franz Günther von Stockert (1899–1967).

In 1872 he became an honorary member of the reading club of German students in Vienna and later also an honorary member of the academic reading group.

plant

Meynert's work began in the middle of the second golden age of the Vienna medical faculty. Along with Wilhelm Griesinger in Berlin, he himself became the founder of a scientifically oriented psychiatry and, in the spirit of Rokitansky, a comparative anatomy of the central nervous system . He succeeded in morphologically separating the systems of involuntary reflex-like movements from those later developed pathways of voluntary innervation . Meynert brought an overview of the complex fiber system of the brain when he compared the "association systems" as connecting paths between the individual brain sections of one hemisphere of the brain and the "commissure paths" connecting the corresponding points in both hemispheres with the "rod ring systems", which project the receptive processes the outside world on the cerebral cortex and on the other hand direct the impulses of the cerebral cortex to the periphery. His decisive brain-anatomical act was probably the establishment of a system of different layers of the individual cerebral regions with z. T. typical cell shapes. He became the founder of cytoarchitectonics in the sense of a regional cell structure of the cerebral cortex, which was expanded by Korbinian Brodmann and brought to a certain perfection in Vienna by Constantin Economo in a monumental work that he dedicated to the memory of Meynert.

In addition to the special orbital anatomical questions, Meynert also dealt with problems of morphological pathology . In this way, he distinguished the findings of progressive paralysis from other brain atrophic processes .

During his time, Meynert also did an excellent job of educating schools abroad: Carl Wernicke , the Swiss psychiatrist August Forel , Gabriel Anton and Franz Chvostek junior were his students.

Meynert was editor of the “Wiener Jahrbuch für Psychiatrie” and co-editor of the “Archive for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases” ( Berlin ). Together with Maximilian Leidesdorf he edited the "Vierteljahrschrift für Psychiatrie" ( Neuwied and Leipzig ).

Works (selection)

(selected from a total of 127 publications)

  • The exposure of the bundle course in the cerebral stem . In: Austrian magazine for practical medicine . 1865 , ZDB ID 541079-4
  • The structure of the large cerebral cortex and its local differences, together with a pathological-anatomical corollarium . Leipzig 1867 - 1868
  • From the mammalian brain . In: Salomon Stricker : Handbook of the doctrine of the tissues of humans and animals . 1869
  • Psychiatry. Clinic of diseases of the forebrain based on its structure, performance and diet . 1884
  • Clinical lectures on psychiatry on a scientific basis for students and doctors, lawyers and psychologists . Vienna , 1859 and 1890
  • Poems . (Published posthumously by Dora v. Stockert-Meynert). Wilhelm Braumüller, Vienna and Leipzig 1905 .

Eponyms

  • Meynert bundle ( Fasciculus retroflexus ): fiber stretch from the nuclei habenulae ( epithalamus ) to the nucleus interpeduncularis ( tegmentum mesencephali ).
  • Meynert's hood crossing ( Decussatio tegmentalis ): the fibers of the tectospinal tract crossing dorsally in the midline of the tegmentum mesencephali (midbrain hood) .
  • Meynert basal nucleus ( nucleus basalis ): a collection of nerve cells in the substantia inominata .
  • Meynert layer : cell layer in the visual cortex on the calcarinus sulcus .
  • Meynert axis : vertical axis through the brain stem . Opposed to it is the Forel axis .

literature

Web links

Commons : Theodor Meynert  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Meynert, Theodor Hermann. 2005, p. 985.
  2. ^ Councilor Meynert. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 9976/1892, June 2, 1892, p. 5, center left. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  3. ↑ Hofrath Dr. Theodor Meynert †. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 9975/1892, June 1, 1892, p. 5 middle. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  4. ↑ Hofrath Professor Meynert. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Abendblatt, No. 9975/1892, June 1, 1892, p. 2 middle. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  5. ↑ Edith Specht (Red.), Klosterneuburger Kultur-Gesellschaft: The Meynert crypt in the Obere Stadt cemetery . In: kultur-klosterneuburg.at , accessed on September 21, 2012.
  6. ↑ Little Chronicle. (...) Monument to Theodor Meynert. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 12740/1900, February 11, 1900, p. 6 middle. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
  7. ^ Entry on Theodor Meynert in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon ) accessed on December 19, 2011
  8. ↑ Catholic color students in Austria 1933-1983, Ed. Wiener Stadtverband des MKV. P. 13

Remarks

  1. ↑ Villa Meynert still stands on ON 62 today. 1892 is found as the mourning house Leopoldstrasse 69. - See: Hofrath Meynert. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Morgenblatt, No. 9977/1892, June 3, 1892, p. 5, center left. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp.
personal data
SURNAME Meynert, Theodor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meynert, Theodor Hermann (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist as well as neuroanatomist
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1833
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1892
Place of death Klosterneuburg , Lower Austria