Gabriel Anton

Biography

• Born 28 July 1858 Saaz (Bohemia)
• Died 3 January 1933

Medical Eponyms

Anton–Babinski Syndrome

A rare neuropsychiatric condition characterised by cortical blindness with denial or unawareness of the deficit (anosognosia). Patients insist they can see despite clear evidence of blindness, often offering confabulatory explanations to mask their visual loss. Most cases follow bilateral occipital lobe damage, commonly from stroke.

1899 – Gabriel Anton (1858–1933) first described the phenomenon in patients with cortical blindness and deafness, noting their lack of self-awareness of the deficit.

« …bei Rindenblindheit und Rindentaubheit bemerkt der Kranke die Störung nicht und verhält sich so, als ob er normal sähe oder hörte. »
(…in cortical blindness and cortical deafness the patient does not notice the disturbance and behaves as if he could see or hear normally.)

Anton 1899

1914 – Babinski extended the concept, coining the term anosognosie to describe unawareness of hemiplegia and other neurological deficits. His Revue Neurologique papers (1914, 1918, 1924) documented cases of denial of paralysis and provided the foundation for modern understanding of anosognosia.

« J’ai observé chez des hémiplégiques organiques une absence de conscience de leur paralysie que je propose de désigner sous le nom d’anosognosie. »
(I have observed in patients with organic hemiplegia an absence of awareness of their paralysis, which I propose to designate by the term anosognosia.)

Babinski 1914

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Anton-von Bramannsche-Balkenstich method

– in the early treatment of hydrocephalus. In collaboration with fellow surgeons Gustav von Bramann and Victor Schmieden, he proposed new clinical procedures for the treatment of hydrocephalus: the Balkenstich method and the suboccipital puncture.

Key Medical Attributions

Controversies

Major Publications

• Anton G. Über die Folgen der Raumbeengung im Schädel für das Nervensystem. Mittheilungen des Vereines der Ärzte in Steiermark 1895;32:85–90
• Anton G. Über die Selbstwahrnehmung der Herderkrankungen des Gehirns durch den Kranken bei Rindenblindheit und Rindentaubheit. Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, Berlin, 1899; 32: 86-127. [Anton–Babinski Syndrome]
• Anton G, von Bramann FG. Balkenstich bei Hydrozephalien, Tumoren und bei Epilepsie. Münch med Wschr 1908; 55:1 673–7 [Anton-von Bramannsche-Balkenstich method]
• Anton G, Schmieden V. Der Subokzipitalstich; eine neue druckentlastende Hirnoperationsmethode. Arch Psychiat Nervenkr 1917; 58: 1–30.

References

• Kumbier E, Haack K. Gabriel Anton’s (1858–1933) contribution to the history of neurosurgery. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2005 Mar;76(3):441.