Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2015

EDUARD HITZIG (1838-1907) Untersuchungen zur Physiologie des Gehirns. Vierte Abhandlung. [n. publ.] 1873 [2] [397]-435 pp., plate. 21 cm.

Hitzig began the practice of psychiatry upon his graduation from Berlin in 1862. In 1875 he was appointed professor of psychiatry and director of the Burghölzli mental asylum in Zurich. In 1879 he accepted a similar position at Nietleben, then six years later established his own neuropsychiatric clinic at Halle. Hitzig collaborated with Gustav Theodor Fritsch (1838-1891), a zoologist, in investigating the cerebral cortex of the dog by stimulating it electrically. The two men worked in Hitzig's home since they lacked suitable laboratory facilities elsewhere; nevertheless, they were able to firmly establish the doctrine of cerebral localization through their experimentation. Hitzig and Fritsch published their findings in a classic paper in the Archiv für Anatomie, Physiologie und wissenschaftliche Medicin in 1870 and followed it with additional material in 1871. The present paper, disbound from the 1873 volume of the Archiv für Anatomie, Physiologie und wissenschaftliche Medicin, concludes their joint investigations. However, Hitzig continued his research and experimentation of the motor region of the cortex and made many additional contributions.

Gift of John Martin, M.D.