Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2305

CONSTANTIN VON ECONOMO (1876-1931) Encephalitis lethargica. Wilhelm Braumüller 1917 13 pp. 23 cm.

Economo, a native of Romania, was raised in the Austrian city of Trieste and was sent to Vienna to study engineering. After two years he transferred to medicine and completed his medical degree in 1901. Following postgraduate medical study at the leading European centers of medical teaching and research, he returned to the psychiatric clinic of Julius von Wagner-Jauregg (1857-1940) at Vienna where he declined advancement in order to devote his efforts to research. Economo's major fields of interest were the anatomy and physiology of the midbrain, pontine tumors, trigeminal pathways, Wilson's disease, and the nature of sleep. His principal work, written with Georg N. Koskinas (fl. 1900), was Die Cytoarchitektonik der Hirnrinde des erwachsenen Menschen (Berlin, 1925). Economo was not only a skilled neuroanatomist and neurophysiologist but was also a balloon pilot and a pioneer in Austrian aviation. He was the first to hold an Austrian pilot's license and also served for a time as a pilot during World War I. In 1917, Economo began studying several cases of a disease in which the only common symptoms were an unusual propensity to sleep and disturbance of an ocular muscle. Using a high degree of intuition, reasoning, and clinical skill, he diagnosed encephalitis lethargica as a new disease. His classical description of this disease was published on May 10, 1917, while that of Jean René Cruchet (1875-1959) was given thirteen days earlier on April 27. His findings were first reported in Volume XXX of the Wiener klinischen Wochenschrift and their publication was soon followed by the present offprint. This was the first in a series of three papers which were subsequently revised and issued as Die Encephalitis lethargica, ihre Nachkrankheiten und ihre Behandlung (Vienna and Berlin, 1929). The other two papers are also included here as offprints, one of which has been inscribed by the author. Economo wrote over twenty-five papers on encephalitis lethargica and lectured on it in many foreign countries. There are twelve other offprints included with these three on encephalitis lethargica, five of which are inscribed by Economo. These offprints document his work from the beginning to the end of his professional career and include work on mastication and deglutition, the autonomic ganglia, the cerebral peduncle, tumors of the pons, paralysis, the hippocampus, the cerebral cortex, the corpus callosum, sleep, and the brain.

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 4650; Cushing E7

Gift of John Martin, M.D.