Martin Bernhardt (10 April 1844 – 17 March 1915) was a noted German

neuropathologist 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 clin ...

. Bernhardt was a native of

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

. His family was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

.Andreas Killen, ''Berlin Electropolis: Shock, Nerves, and German Modernity'', University of California Press (2006), p. 64 In 1867 he received his medical doctorate at the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (german: link=no, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick Will ...

, where he was a student of

Rudolf Virchow Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow (; or ; 13 October 18215 September 1902) was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founde ...

(1821-1902) and

Ludwig Traube Ludwig Traube may refer to: *Ludwig Traube (physician) (1818–1876), German physician and co-founder of experimental pathology in Germany *Ludwig Traube (palaeographer) Ludwig Traube (June 19, 1861 – May 19, 1907) was a paleographer and held ...

(1818-1878). Subsequently, he became an assistant to

Ernst Viktor von Leyden Ernst Viktor von Leyden (20 April 1832 – 5 October 1910) was a German internist from Danzig. Biography He studied medicine at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Institut in Berlin, and was a pupil of Johann Lukas Schönlein (1793–1864) and Lu ...

(1832-1910) at the university clinic at

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was na ...

, and afterwards worked at the Berlin-

Charité The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine) is one of Europe's largest university hospitals, affiliated with Humboldt University and Free University Berlin. With numerous Collaborative Research Ce ...

under

Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal (23 March 1833, in Berlin – 27 January 1890, in Kreuzlingen) was a German psychiatrist from Berlin. He was the son of Otto Carl Friedrich Westphal (1800–1879) and Karoline Friederike Heine and the father of Alexa ...

(1833-1890). After military service in the Franco-Prussian War, he returned to

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

as a specialist in

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 ...

, and in 1882 attained the title of "professor extraordinarius". Bernhardt published several treatises on

neurological Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "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 brain, the spinal c ...

diseases and

electrotherapy Electrotherapy is the use of electrical energy as a medical treatment. In medicine, the term ''electrotherapy'' can apply to a variety of treatments, including the use of electrical devices such as deep brain stimulators for neurological disea ...

, and in 1885 became editor-in-chief of the ''Centralblatt für die Medizinischen Wissenschaften''. With Russian neuropathologist

Vladimir Karlovich Roth Vladimir Karlovich Roth (5 October 1848 – 6 January 1916) — sometimes Vladimir Karlovich Rot — was a Russian Empire Neuropathology, neuropathologist. Roth was native of Oryol, Orel. He studied medicine at the University of Moscow, where he ...

(1848-1916), the eponymous "Bernhardt-Roth

paraesthesia Paresthesia is an abnormal sensation of the skin (tingling, pricking, chilling, burning, numbness) with no apparent physical cause. Paresthesia may be transient or chronic, and may have any of dozens of possible underlying causes. Paresthesias ar ...

" is named. This condition is also referred to as ''

meralgia paraesthetica Meralgia paresthetica or meralgia paraesthetica is numbness or pain in the outer thigh not caused by injury to the thigh, but by injury to a nerve that extends from the spinal column to the thigh. This chronic (medicine), chronic neurological d ...

'', and is characterized by numbness or pain in the outer

thigh In human anatomy, the thigh is the area between the hip ( pelvis) and the knee. Anatomically, it is part of the lower limb. The single bone in the thigh is called the femur. This bone is very thick and strong (due to the high proportion of ...

that is caused by injury to the

lateral femoral cutaneous nerve The lateral cutaneous nerve of the thigh (also called the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve) is a cutaneous nerve of the thigh. It originates from the dorsal divisions of the second and third lumbar nerves from the lumbar plexus. It passes under t ...

. Associated eponym: * ''Bernhardt's formula'' : A formula used to calculate an adult's ideal weight in

kilogram The kilogram (also kilogramme) is the unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol kg. It is a widely used measure in science, engineering and commerce worldwide, and is often simply called a kilo colloquially ...

s ; it is found by measuring a person's height in centimeters, times his/her chest circumference in centimeters and dividing by 240.

Selected publications

* ''Die Sensibilitätsverhältnisse der Haut''; 1873 * ''Beiträge zur Symptomatologie und Diagnostik der Hirngeschwülste''; 1881 * ''Electricitätslehre für Mediziner und Elektrotherapie'' 1884, in collaboration with

Isidor Rosenthal Julius Isidor Rosenthal (16 July 1836 – 2 January 1915) was a German physiologist who was a native of Labischin. In 1859 he received his doctorate from the University of Berlin, where he was a student of Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896). Aft ...

(1836-1915). * ''Erkrankungen der Peripherischen Nerven''; 1895–1897.

References

Biography at the Jewish Encyclopedia

Online Medical Dictionary

@

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 ...

19th-century German Jews German neurologists People from Potsdam 1844 births 1915 deaths Jewish German scientists {{Germany-med-bio-stub