- A dictionary of medical eponyms

Viktor Kafka

Born  1881
Died  1955

Related eponyms

Austrian neuropsychologist and bacteriologist, born October 12, 1881, Karlsbad [now Czhechia]; died May 5, 1955, Stockholm, Sweden.

Biography of Viktor Kafka

Viktor Kafkaattended the university in Prague. He obtained his medical doctorate in 1906 and from 1907 to 1911 held a position as an assistant at the psychiatric clinic at the German medical faculty at the University of prague.

In 1911, Kafka and the bacteriologist Edmund Weil described a previously unknown bacteriological reaction. The same year he changed to the Hamburg-Friedrichsberg hospital, where he became head of the serological department in the bacteriological-serological institute in 1917. In 1919 he was habilitated for psychiatry in Hamburg and in 1920 received the appointment as chief of the serological department of the university psychiatric clinic and the Staatskrankenanstalt Hamburg-Friedrichsberg, becoming ausserordentlicher professor in 1924.

In 1927 he was appointed physician-in-chief at the serological department. Because of his Jewish descent, Kafka was removed form his position. In 1939 he went into exile in Norway, and in 1942 in Sweden, where he lived until his death in 1955.

Bibliography

  • Taschenbuch der praktischen Untersuchungsmethoden der Körperflüssigkeiten bei Nerven- und Geisteskranken.
    Berlin, 1917; 3rd edition, 1927.
  • Zentralnervensystem. Handbuch der biologischen Arbeitsmethoden, part 5, T. 5 B; Berlin and Vienna, 1923.
  • Serologie der Geisteskrankheiten.
    Handbuch der Geisteskrankheiten, volume 3, Berlin, 1928.
  • Theorie und Technik der der Liquoruntersuchung mit besonderen Berücksichtigung der Syphilis. Handbuch der Hautkrankheiten, volume 17, 1; Berlin, 1929.
  • Endolumbale Behandlung der Syphilis.
    Handbuch der Hautkrankheiten, volume 17, 1; Berlin, 1929.
  • Die Cerebrospinalflüssigket. Leipzig-Wien, Deuticke & Co, 1930.
  • Sexualpathologie für Mediziner, Juristen und Psychologen.
    Leipzig, Deuticke & Co, 1932.
  • Taschenbuch der praktischen Untersuchungsmethoden der Körperflüssigkeiten bei Nerven- und Geisteskranken. 5th edition, Karger, 1948.

  • R. A. Demme:
    [To Victor Kafka on his 70th birthday.]
    Der Nervenarzt, October 1951, 22 (10): 361.
With Carl Bruck (1879-1944), Erwin Jacobsthal (born 1879) and Johannes Karl Zeissler (1883-1965) he published Handbuch der Serodiagnose der Syphilis.

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.