Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2039

HERMANN NOTHNAGEL (1841-1905) Topische Diagnostik des Gehirnkrankheiten. August Hirschwald 1879 vi, 626 pp. 21.9 cm.

Nothnagel was one of the leading clinicians of his day and a major force in the New Vienna School. A physician's son, he was born in the province of Brandenburg, and studied at the Friedrich-Wilhelm Institute of Medicine and Surgery in Berlin where he graduated in 1863. Nothnagel was assistant to Leyden (see No. 1978) at Königsberg from 1865 to 1868 where he qualified as Privatdozent in internal medicine in 1866. Under Leyden's guidance, Nothnagel's interests turned to neurophysiology and neuropathology. It was during this period that he made many new findings, including a description of acroparesthesia. He returned to Berlin for service as an army medical officer from 1868 until 1870 and observed the horrors of war firsthand during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Nothnagel continued his military service at Breslau until 1872 when he became professor of pharmacology and director of the Medical Policlinic at Freiburg as a result of the success of his Handbuch der Arzneimittellehre (Berlin, 1870). In 1874 he was called to the chair of pathology and therapy at Jena where he served until 1882 when he assumed similar duties at Vienna. Nothnagel's research and interests covered a broad spectrum of subjects including epilepsy, cholelithiasis, the causes of arrhythmia, paroxysmal tachycardia, atrophy of the rennin-secreting glands, infectious angiocholangitis, pernicious anemia, pathology of the liver and kidneys, Addison's disease, dysentery, and chlorosis. Viennese medicine was a preeminent force and exerted great influence throughout the world at the end of the nineteenth century. Like Billroth (see No. 1952) before him, Nothnagel published his own extensive handbook of medicine. The Handbuch der speciellen Pathologie und Therapie began publication in 1894 and ran to twenty-four volumes in the first edition. Nothnagel solicited the leading internists of the German-speaking countries to contribute to this impressive series the latest knowledge in the many specialties of internal medicine. The present work on topical diagnosis of brain diseases is one of Nothnagel's most important contributions and is an excellent example of his expertise in applying pathological methods to clinical problems. It was in this work that he described Nothnagel's syndrome, unilateral oculomotor paralysis combined with cerebellar ataxia in lesions of the cerebral peduncles.

See Related Record(s): 1978 1952

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 4560