Moritz Benedikt

Moritz Benedikt (1835-1920) 1

Moritz Benedikt (1835-1920) was an Austro-Hungarian neurologist

Benedikt was one of the founders of criminal anthropology he believed that morality was a sense organ whose neurophysiological substrate could be found in a specific part of the human cortex. He hypothesised that the moral centre was located in the occipital area of the brain when others believed higher mental processes including moral feelings and ethical thoughts to be associated with the frontal parts of the brain.

Benedikt coined the term Darsonvalisation in 1899 to designate all therapeutic or experimental applications of pulsed high frequency (110–400 kHz) high voltage (10–20 kV) electrotherapy after the inventor Jaques-Arsène d’ Arsonval (1851-1940).

He also had a considerable interest in dowsing and radiesthesia writing Leitfaden der Rutenlehre (Wünschelrute) (Guideline to use of Divining Rods) on the subject


Biography
  • Born July 4, 1835, in Eisenstadt, Sopron County (Hungary)
  • Physician with the Austrian army during the Second Italian War of Independence (1859) and the Austro-Prussian War.
  • Died April 14, 1920, in Vienna

Medical Eponyms
Benedikt syndrome (1889)

Posterior circulation stroke that affects the midbrain (paramedian midbrain syndrome). The midbrain stroke syndrome involves the fascicles of the oculomotor nerve and the red nucleus.

Symptoms of Benedikt syndrome include:

  • Ipsilateral third nerve palsy, which can manifest as ptosis, abduction of the eye, diplopia, miosis, mydriasis, and loss of accommodation reflex.
  • Contralateral loss of proprioception and vibration sensations.
  • Cerebellar ataxia, which can involve involuntary movements.
  • Contralateral rhythmic tremor of the hand and foot, which increases with emotional excitement and voluntary movements, and is absent during sleep.

The syndrome is typically caused by a lesion in the tegmentum of the midbrain and cerebellum, often due to an ischaemic stroke involving branches of the posterior cerebral artery or paramedian penetrating branches of the basilar artery.135 Other potential causes include haemorrhage, tumours, or tuberculosis.


Major Publications

References

Biography

Eponymous terms


Eponym

the person behind the name

BA MA (Oxon) MBChB (Edin) FACEM FFSEM. Emergency physician, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.  Passion for rugby; medical history; medical education; and asynchronous learning #FOAMed evangelist. Co-founder and CTO of Life in the Fast lane | Eponyms | Books | Twitter |

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.