Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Carl Wernicke

  • “Modern psychiatry begins with Kraepelin”

    JMS PearceHull, England “Modern psychiatry begins with Kraepelin”1 The pages of history seen through the retrospectroscope often provide dull facts rather than insights into the personalities and driving forces of its famous subjects. Such is the case of Emil Wilhelm Kraepelin (1856-1926) (Fig 1), a German psychiatrist, widely acknowledged as the founder and pioneer of…

  • Tendon reflex hammers

    JMS Pearce East York, England The vogue for reflex hammers started with Erb and Westphal’s adjacent papers1,2 in the 1875 issue of the Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, which described the tendon or muscle stretch reflex. Wilhelm Heinrich Erb (1840-1921) read medicine at Heidelberg where he remained for most of his life. The leading neurologist in…