Professor Otto Marburg, universal neurologist and the 'dean of teachers'

Triarhou, Lazaros C.

doi:10.1007/s00508-008-0980-y

Cited by 15 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(67 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Typically only established physicians with a strong reputation or younger physicians with "nothing to lose" were the ones who emigrated (Zeidman & Kondziella, 2012). Even prominent neuropathologists like Otto Marburg, the pre-eminent Viennese neuropathologist who described the Marburg variant of multiple sclerosis, had severe difficulty obtaining a practice license in New York after immigrating there in 1938 (Triarhou, 2008). Additionally, there was a fierce loyalty among German physicians to their fatherland, and Wallenberg apparently felt this loyalty also, like some other Danzig Jews.…”

Section: Between the World Wars And Continued Career Successes Until mentioning

confidence: 98%

Adolf Wallenberg: Giant in Neurology and Refugee from Nazi Europe

Zeidman

Mohan

2013

Journal of the History of the Neurosciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Adolf Wallenberg became the "anatomical conscience" to at least one famed neurologist, and was known worldwide by top neurologists. His comprehensive clinical-pathological descriptions of what became known as Wallenberg Syndrome had a large impact on neurology and launched his career. He did not let a skull base injury from an accident, or his service in the German army in World War I, impede his progress. Despite his accomplishments, because he was Jewish he was stripped of his research laboratory and forced to stop working when the Nazis took over his native Danzig. He barely escaped just before World War II began and immigrated to England, then to the United States. Because of his impact on neurology and his unusual strife, his story is one that neuroscientists should not forget.

show abstract

Section: Between the World Wars And Continued Career Successes Until mentioning

confidence: 98%

Adolf Wallenberg: Giant in Neurology and Refugee from Nazi Europe

Zeidman

Mohan

2013

Journal of the History of the Neurosciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…31 Otto Marburg (1874 -1948) (Fig 8) was a neurologist born in Bohemia who headed the world's first interdisciplinary brain research center in Vienna from 1919 to 1938. 32 However, this part of his career ended abruptly with the Nazi occupation of Austria, upon which 63 professors of Jewish descent were immediately dismissed. 32 He subsequently moved to the United States where Dr. Bernard Sachs (of Tay-Sachs disease) was his American sponsor.…”

Section: Marburg Multiple Sclerosismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…32 However, this part of his career ended abruptly with the Nazi occupation of Austria, upon which 63 professors of Jewish descent were immediately dismissed. 32 He subsequently moved to the United States where Dr. Bernard Sachs (of Tay-Sachs disease) was his American sponsor. 32 Marburg later served as a pallbearer at Sachs's funeral in 1944 alongside Fiorello LaGuardia, New York's mayor at the time.…”

Section: Marburg Multiple Sclerosismentioning

confidence: 99%

Behind the Name: Eponyms of Neuroradiology

Chow¹,

Esaa²,

Kozberg³

et al. 2015

neurograph

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…These individuals were also victims and did not escape unscathed, experiencing multiple entanglements both in emigrating (e.g., flight taxes, visa problems, concentration camp incarceration, and continual emigration to avoid the German advance) [34,35,75] , and in establishing themselves personally and professionally in their new countries. Even eminent Jewish German neurological clinic directors such as Alfred Hauptmann (1881-1948) [76] and Friedrich Lewy (1885-1950) [77] or Austrians such as Otto Marburg (1874-1948) [78] , Josef Gerstmann (1887-1969) [66,75] , and Artur Schüller (1874-1957) [79] , who had long been highly successful in their native countries, had to backtrack and slowly re-ascend the academic ladder or maintain private practices to make a living. In addition to medical licensing issues, which highly varied by state in America or by country, further distractions faced by some neuroscientists such as Gerstmann in the aftermath of WWII were reclamation of property, flight taxes, and life insurance stolen by the Nazis and the reinstatement of doctoral degrees that had been surreptitiously revoked [66] .…”

Section: Victims Of the Nazi Purge: Neuroscientists Murdered Or Exiledmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Central Role of Neuroscientists under National Socialism

Zeidman

2016

War Neurology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Neuroscientists played central roles in the victimization of colleagues and their patients during the era of National Socialism from 1933 to 1945. After helping dismiss Jewish and nonideologically aligned colleagues, German neuroscientists were among the physicians and researchers who joined the Nazi Party and affiliated groups in record numbers. Forced sterilization and then so-called 'euthanasia' of neurological and psychiatric patients were planned and executed by prominent German and Austrian neuroscientists. Other neuroscientists collaborated indirectly by using patients for unethical experimentation to discover the cause of multiple sclerosis or to try to induce epileptic convulsions in a hypoxic state. Some merely used neuropathological material from murdered patients for publications in scientific journals. In the totalitarian state, research funding and academic advancement were awarded to physicians engaged in eugenics research. Opportunism and ideologically tainted science without regard to medical ethics were the motivating factors for collaborating neuroscientists. Some German and Austrian neuroscientists tried to resist Nazi policies, although much more passively than their colleagues in German-occupied countries. French, Dutch, Norwegian, and Danish neuroscientists actively resisted the Nazification of their profession from the beginning and helped to save some patients and colleagues, at great personal risk. Many German, Austrian, Czech, and Polish neurologists were murdered in the Holocaust, and hundreds of thousands of neurological and psychiatric patients were sterilized or murdered in just 12 years. The Nazis used the 'successful' techniques developed in the 'euthanasia' programs to carry out the mass murder of millions in the Holocaust. Today's neuroscientists are obligated to learn of the ethical violations of their predecessors 70-80 years ago. No law will prevent abandonment of the basic principles of ethical patient care and professionalism that can occur in any totalitarian state, but neuroscientists can possibly prevent it.

show abstract

Professor Otto Marburg, universal neurologist and the 'dean of teachers'

Cited by 15 publications

References 54 publications

Adolf Wallenberg: Giant in Neurology and Refugee from Nazi Europe

Adolf Wallenberg: Giant in Neurology and Refugee from Nazi Europe

Behind the Name: Eponyms of Neuroradiology

The Central Role of Neuroscientists under National Socialism

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About