Moritz Benedikt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Moritz Benedikt

Moritz Benedikt (4 July 1835-1920) was an Austrian neurologist who was a native of Eisenstadt. He was an instructor and professor of neurology at the University of Vienna. Benedikt was a physician with the Austrian army during the Second Italian War of Independence (1859) and the Austro-Prussian War.

Benedikt was a specialist in the fields of electrotherapeutics and neuropathology. His name is lent to the eponymous Benedikt's syndrome, which is characterized by ipsilateral oculomotor paralysis with contralateral tremor and hemiparesis caused by a lesion involving the red nucleus and corticospinal tract in the midbrain tegmentum.

Benedikt is remembered today for his controversial research in criminal anthropology. He performed numerous cephalometric studies, and postulated that there were specific differences between "normal" and "criminal brains". This research is explained in his book titled Anatomical Studies upon the Brains of Criminals, which was later translated into English. Benedikt is also credited for coining the word "darsonvalisation" to describe therapeutic or experimental applications of high frequency. Darsonvalisation was named in honor of French biophysicist Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval (1851-1940).