Moritz Benedikt also spelt Moriz (4 July 1835, in

Eisenstadt Eisenstadt (; ; ; or ; ) is the capital city of the Provinces of Austria, Austrian state of Burgenland. With a population of 15,074 (as of 2023), it is the smallest state capital and the 38th-largest city in Austria overall. It lies at the foot o ...

Sopron County Sopron (German language, German: ''Ödenburg'', Slovak language, Slovak: ''Šopron'') was an administrative county (Comitatus (Kingdom of Hungary), comitatus) of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its territory is now divided between Austria and Hungary. Th ...

– 14 April 1920, in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

) was a

neurologist Neurology (from , "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the nervous system, which comprises the brain, the ...

who worked in Austria-Hungary.

Early life and education

He was born in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. He got his medical education in Vienna, where he studied under Hyrtl, Briicke, Skoda, Oppolzer, Rokitansky and other well-known teachers, and qualified in 1859.

Career

He was an instructor and professor of neurology at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

. Benedikt was a physician with the Austrian army during the

Second Italian War of Independence The Second Italian War of Independence, also called the Sardinian War, the Austro-Sardinian War, the Franco-Austrian War, or the Italian War of 1859 (Italian: ''Seconda guerra d'indipendenza italiana''; German: ''Sardinischer Krieg''; French: ...

(1859) and the

Austro-Prussian War The Austro-Prussian War (German: ''Preußisch-Österreichischer Krieg''), also known by many other names,Seven Weeks' War, German Civil War, Second War of Unification, Brothers War or Fraternal War, known in Germany as ("German War"), ''Deutsc ...

. Benedikt was a specialist in the fields of electrotherapeutics and

neuropathology Neuropathology is the study of disease of nervous system tissue, usually in the form of either small surgical biopsies or whole-body autopsies. Neuropathologists usually work in a department of anatomic pathology, but work closely with the clini ...

. His name is lent to the eponymous " Benedikt's syndrome", a disease characterized by ipsilateral

oculomotor The oculomotor nerve, also known as the third cranial nerve, cranial nerve III, or simply CN III, is a cranial nerve that enters the orbit through the superior orbital fissure and innervates extraocular muscles that enable most movements of ...

paralysis Paralysis (: paralyses; also known as plegia) is a loss of Motor skill, motor function in one or more Skeletal muscle, muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory d ...

with contralateral tremor and

hemiparesis Hemiparesis, also called unilateral paresis, is the weakness of one entire side of the body (''wikt:hemi-#Prefix, hemi-'' means "half"). Hemiplegia, in its most severe form, is the complete paralysis of one entire side of the body. Either hemipar ...

caused by a

lesion A lesion is any damage or abnormal change in the tissue of an organism, usually caused by injury or diseases. The term ''Lesion'' is derived from the Latin meaning "injury". Lesions may occur in both plants and animals. Types There is no de ...

involving the

red nucleus The red nucleus or nucleus ruber is a structure in the rostral midbrain involved in motor coordination. The red nucleus is pale pink, which is believed to be due to the presence of iron in at least two different forms: hemoglobin and ferritin. ...

and

corticospinal tract The corticospinal tract is a white matter motor pathway starting at the cerebral cortex that terminates on lower motor neurons and interneurons in the spinal cord, controlling movements of the limbs and trunk. There are more than one million neu ...

in the

midbrain tegmentum The midbrain is anatomically delineated into the tectum (roof) and the tegmentum (floor). The midbrain tegmentum extends from the substantia nigra to the cerebral aqueduct in a horizontal section of the midbrain. It forms the floor of the midbra ...

Legacy

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". He explained his research on the subject in a book titled "Anatomical Studies upon the Brains of Criminals" (title of English translation). Benedikt is credited for coining the word "darsonvalisation" to describe

therapeutic A therapy or medical treatment is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. Both words, ''treatment'' and ''therapy'', are often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx. As a rule, each therapy has indications an ...

or experimental applications of pulsed high frequency (110–400 kHz) high voltage (around 10–20 kV) current of a few mA. Sources which cite power ic/nowiki> of 100–200 mA should be disregarded; this implies power in the order of kilowatts. Darsonvalisation was named in honor of French

biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval (8 June 1851 – 31 December 1940) was a French physician, physicist and inventor of the moving-coil d'Arsonval galvanometer and the thermocouple ammeter. D'Arsonval was an important contributor to the emerging field o ...

(1851–1940). Benedikt also took an interest in

dowsing Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, Petroleum, oil, claimed radiations (radiesthesia),As translated from one preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active do ...

(

radiesthesia Radiesthesia describes a physical ability to detect radiation emitted by a person, animal, object or geographical feature. One of its practitioners, J. Cecil Maby, defined it as "The faculty and study of certain reflexive physical responses of ...

), writing two books on this subject ''Leitfaden der Rutenlehre'' (eng. ''Guideline to use of Divining Rods'') and ''Ruten- und Pendellehre'' (eng. ''Instructions in Diving Rods and Pendulums'')

Publications

* Moriz Benedikt: ''Die psychologischen Funktionen des Gehirnes in gesundem und kranker Zustand'', Wiener Klinik: Vorträge; Jg. 1, H. 7, Wien, 1875 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Zur Lehre von der Localisation der Gehirnfunctionen'', Wiener Klinik: Vorträge; Jg. 9, H. 5-6, Vienna, 1875 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Ueber Katalepsie und Mesmerismus'', Wiener Klinik: Vorträge; Jg. 6, H. 3/4, Vienna, 1880 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Ueber Elektricität in der Medicin'', Wiener Klinik: Vorträge; Jg. 10, H. 2, Vienna, 1884 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Grundformeln des neuropathologischen Denkens'', Wiener Klinik: Vorträge; Jg. 11, H. 4, Vienna, 1885 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Hypnotismus und Suggestion'', Breitenstein, Leipzig, 1894 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Seelenkunde des Menschen als reine Erfahrungswissenschaft'', Reisland, Leipzig, 1895 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Krystallisation und Morphogenesis'', Perles, Vienna, 1904 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Aus meinem Leben: Erinnerungen und Erörterungen'', Konegen, Vienna, 1906 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Biomechanik und Biogenesis'', , Jena, 1912 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Die latenten (Reichenbach'schen) Emanationen der Chemikalien'', Konegen, Vienna, 1915 * Moriz Benedikt: ''Leitfaden der Rutenlehre (Wünschelrute)'', Urban & Schwarzenberg, Vienna, 1916; modern edition * Moriz Benedikt: ''Ruten- und Pendellehre'', Hartleben, Vienna, 1917

Sources

Moritz Benedikt’s Localization of Morality in the Occipital Lobes
Short Biography of Moritz Benedikt

@

Who Named It ''Whonamedit?'' is an online English-language dictionary of medical eponyms and the people associated with their identification. Though it is a dictionary, many eponyms and persons are presented in extensive articles with comprehensive bibliograp ...

* , Dr Moritz Benedikt, Verlagsbuchhandlung Carl Konegen, Vienna, 1906.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Benedikt, Moritz 1835 births 1920 deaths Neurologists from Austria-Hungary Academic staff of the University of Vienna Hungarian Jews People from Eisenstadt