Frederic Lewy: how the two World Wars changed his life, work, and name

Abstract

In 1912, Friedrich Lewy described the inclusion bodies present in Parkinson disease and in Lewy body dementia. Throughout his life, Lewy fought in two wars – on opposite sides. He was born in Berlin in a Jewish family, and served in the German Army in World War I. In the following years, on many occasions he had to change his line of research due to Nazi persecution. Lewy became a naturalized American, changed his name to Frederic Henry Lewey, and served in the US Army as a lieutenant colonel. Lewy died in 1950 and never used the famous eponym in his papers.