- A dictionary of medical eponyms

Ernst Adolf Gustav Gottfried von Strümpell

Born  1853
Died  1925

Related eponyms

German neurologist, born June 29, 1853, Estate Neu-Autz in Kurland; died 1925.

Biography of Ernst Adolf Gustav Gottfried von Strümpell

Ernst Adolf Gustav Gottfried von Strümpell was born on the estate Neu Autz in Kurland, a Baltic province of Russia, and spent his youth in Dorpat, Estonia, where his father, Ludwig Strümpell, a born Braunschweiger, was university professor of philosophy.

Strümpell first studied philosophy for one term at the German university in Prague, but in 1870 changed to medicine. After his father received a chair in Leipzig, he moved there with his family in 1872. His teachers there were Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich (1815-1877), Karl Thiersch (1822-1895), Carl Benno Credé (1847-1929) and Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (1816-1895), the inventor of the kymograph drum. He completed his studies as doctor of medicine in 1875. The following year he was appointed an assistant at the Leipzig medical clinic, first working under C. A. Wunderlich in his clinic, then under Ernst Leberecht Wagner (1829-1888), until 1882, and in this period was also influenced by Julius Friedrich Cohnheim (1839-1884). Strümpell was habilitated as Privatdozent for internal medicine in 1878, in 1883 becoming ausserordentlicher Professor and succeeded Wilhelm Heinrich Erb (1840-1921) as director of the polyclinic in Leipzig.

Strümpell’s first lectures were on infectious disease - first attended by one student - who left when the lecturer entered the classroom. When Wilhelm Erb moved to Heidelberg in 1884 Strümpell followed suit and became director of the medical clinic, with Paul Julius Möbius (1853-1907) as his assistant.

In 1886 Strümpell left Leipzig to become professor of medicine and director of the medical clinic in Erlangen, succeeding Wilhelm Olivier Leube (1842-1922). He remained in Erlangen until 1903, when he moved to the University of Breslau. In 1909 he went on to Vienna, before he in 1910 gained his final appointment at Leipzig, replacing the internist Heinrich Curschmann (1846-1910). He spent the remains of his life in Leipzig. Adolf Gustav Gottfried Strümpell was knighted in 1893, becoming Adolf Gustav Gottfried von Strümpell

Based upon his own experience, Strümpell in 1883/1884 published what was to become the definitive textbook on internal medicine in Germany: Lehrbuch der speziellen Pathologie und Therapie der inneren Krankheiten. Strümpell made important contributions to a broad spectre of medical themes. His works in neuropathology are of such fundamental importance that he must be ranked among the founders of neurology as a clinical educational discipline in Germany. His research concerned, among many things, tabes dorsalis, systemic diseases of the spinal cord, infantile paralysis, acromegalia, and progressive muscular atrophy. Most of his articles were published in Zeitschrift für Nervenheilkunde, a journal published by himself with Wilhelm Erb, Friedrich Schultze (1848-1934), and Ludwig Lichtheim (1845-1928) from 1891, and of which he himself was editor.

Adolf von Strümpell was an optimistic and kind person devoted to his patients and a liberal in life, whilst respecting tradition. Already as a youth he had distinguished himself as a violinist, and as a grown man his love of music gave him personal contact with many of the period’s outstanding artists.

Bibliography

  • Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Urämie beim primären Morbus Brightii.
    Doctoral dissertation, Leipzig, 1875.
  • Lehrbuch der speciellen Pathologie und Therapie der inneren Krankheiten.
    2 volumes. Leipzig, F. C. W. Vogel, 1883-1884.
    This work rant through more than 30 editions and was translated into numerous foreign languages, among them Japanese and Turkish. English translation in 1887. Edition 29-30 was published in 1930 by Seyfarth. Strümpell’s disease (entered as Bekhterev’s diseaase or syndrome) was described in volume 2, page 152.
  • Über spinale, progressive Muskelatrophie und amyotrophische Seitenstransklerose.
    Deutsches Archiv für klinische Medicin, Leipzig, 1888, 42: 230-260.
    Wohlfart-Kugelberg-Welander syndrome.
  • Bemerkung über die chronische ankylosirende Entzündung der Wirbelsäule und der Hüftgelenke.
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Nervenheilkunde, Berlin, 1897, 11: 338-342.
    Translated into English in Bick, Classics of Orthopaedics, 345-347.
  • Kurzer Leitfaden für die klinische Krankenuntersuchung.
    Leipzig, 1887; 6th edition, 1908; translated into English.
  • Die Entstehung und die Heilung der Krankheiten durch Vorstellungen.
    Erlangen, 1892.
  • Die Untersuchung, Beurtheilung und Behandlung von Unfallkranken. Munich, 1895.
  • Blutkreislauf bei Arteriosklerose. Vienna and Leipzig, 1914.
  • Leitfaden für die Untersuchung und Diagnostik der wichtigsten Nervenkrankheiten. Leipzig, 1914.
  • Aus dem Leben eines deutschen Klinikers. Erinnerungen und Beobachtungen.
    Leipzig, 1925. Autobiography.

What is an eponym?

An eponym is a word derived from the name of a person, whether real or fictional. A medical eponym is thus any word related to medicine, whose name is derived from a person.

What is Whonamedit?

Whonamedit.com is a biographical dictionary of medical eponyms. It is our ambition to present a complete survey of all medical phenomena named for a person, with a biography of that person.

Disclaimer:

Whonamedit? does not give medical advice.
This survey of medical eponyms and the persons behind them is meant as a general interest site only. No information found here must under any circumstances be used for medical purposes, diagnostically, therapeutically or otherwise. If you, or anybody close to you, is affected, or believe to be affected, by any condition mentioned here: see a doctor.