Eduard Hitzig (6 February 1838 – 20 August 1907) was a German

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 ...

and neuropsychiatrist of

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

ancestryAndrew P. Wickens, ''A History of the Brain: From Stone Age Surgery to Modern Neuroscience'', Psychology Press (2014), p. 226 born in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. Eduard was the son of Friedrich Hitzig and his grandfather had converted to Protestantism. He studied medicine at the Universities of

and

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

under the instruction of famous men such as Emil Du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896), Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), Moritz Heinrich Romberg (1795–1873), and Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal (1833–1890). He received his doctorate in 1862 and subsequently worked in Berlin and Würzburg. In 1875, he became director of the Burghölzli asylum, as well as professor of

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of deleterious mental disorder, mental conditions. These include matters related to cognition, perceptions, Mood (psychology), mood, emotion, and behavior. ...

at the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

. In 1885, Hitzig became a professor at the University of Halle where he remained until his retirement in 1903. Hitzig is remembered for his work concerning the interaction between electric current and the

brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...

. In 1870, Hitzig, assisted by

anatomist Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

Gustav Fritsch Gustav Theodor Fritsch (5 March 1838 – 12 June 1927) was a German anatomist, anthropologist, traveller and physiologist from Cottbus. Fritsch studied natural science and medicine in Berlin, Breslau and Heidelberg. In 1874 he became an asso ...

(1837–1927), applied electricity via a thin probe to the exposed

cerebral cortex The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals. It is the largest site of Neuron, neural integration in the central nervous system, and plays ...

of a dog without

anesthesia Anesthesia (American English) or anaesthesia (British English) is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical or veterinary purposes. It may include some or all of analgesia (relief from or prev ...

. They performed these studies at the home of Fritsch because the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

would not allow such experimentation in their laboratories. What Hitzig and Fritsch had discovered is that electrical stimulation of different areas of the

cerebrum The cerebrum (: cerebra), telencephalon or endbrain is the largest part of the brain, containing the cerebral cortex (of the two cerebral hemispheres) as well as several subcortical structures, including the hippocampus, basal ganglia, and olfac ...

caused involuntary muscular contractions of specific parts of the dog's body. They identified the brain's "motor strip", a vertical strip of brain tissue on the

in the back of the

frontal lobe The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the brain in mammals, and is located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere (in front of the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe). It is parted from the parietal lobe by a Sulcus (neur ...

, which controls different muscles in the body. In 1870, Hitzig published his findings in an essay called ''Ueber die elektrische Erregbarkeit des Grosshirns'' (On the Electrical Excitability of the Cerebrum). This experimentation was considered the first time anyone had done any localized study regarding the brain and electric current. However this was not the first time Hitzig had experienced the interaction between the brain and electricity; earlier in his career as a physician working with the Prussian Army, he experimented on wounded soldiers whose skulls were fractured by bullets. Hitzig noticed that applying a small electric current to the brains of these soldiers caused involuntary muscular movement. Hitzig and Fritsch's work opened the door to further localized testing of the brain by many others including Scottish neurologist,

David Ferrier Sir David Ferrier FRS (13 January 1843 – 19 March 1928) was a pioneering Scottish neurologist and psychologist. Ferrier conducted experiments on the brains of animals such as monkeys and in 1881 became the first scientist to be prosecuted ...

References

* Mind as Mosaic (The Robot in the Machine), Bruce H. Hinrichs * ''Parts of this article are based on a translation of an article from the German Wikipedia.''

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hitzig, Eduard 1830s births 1907 deaths 19th-century German Jews German neurologists German psychiatrists Academic staff of the University of Halle Physicians from Berlin People associated with the University of Zurich Academic staff of the University of Zurich Prussian physicians 19th-century German physicians