Theodor Meynert

MEYNERT, Theodor (1833–1892), a major neurologist and psychiatrist; born in Dresden, he graduated from the medical faculty in Vienna (1861), where he lived his entire life. In 1865, Meynert was elected a private docent for the anatomy and physiology of the brain and spinal cord, and shortly thereafter became a prosector at the Vienna Psychiatric Hospital; from 1868, Meynert also taught a course on psychiatry there. In 1869, he published a major work, "Vom Gehirn der Säugethiere" (a chapter in "Handbuch der Lehre v. den Geweben," edited by S. Sticker, Leipzig, 1872), where he established the layered structure of the cerebral cortex, described association and projection fibers, the course of motor and sensory pathways, the passage of the latter through subcortical ganglia, and thus established a whole series of new data on the anatomy and histology of the brain. Under the great influence of the pathologist Rokitansky, Meynert set himself the goal of building all of psychiatry on an anatomical basis. Hence the title of his main work: "Psychiatrie, Klinik der Erkrankungen des Vorderhirns begründet auf dessen Bau, Leistungen und Ernährung" (Vienna, 1884). In this work, and later in "Klinische Vorlesungen über Psychiatrie" (Vienna, 1890), Meynert expounds his famous theory on the functional antagonism between the cerebral cortex and subcortical nodes, on the basis of which he attempts to interpret the origin of hallucinations, delusional ideas, mania, melancholia, etc. From 1870, Meynert held the chair of psychiatry at the University of Vienna. In 1881 and 1889 (in a special work and in clinical lectures), Meynert described acute confusion, or acute "mindlessness," amentia (amentia Meynerti), which he explains by a disturbance in the activity of association fibers. Despite the fact that Meynert put forward a whole series of ingenious and bold hypotheses, the purely anatomical direction in psychiatry that he advanced did not fulfill expectations, even receiving the ironic name "cerebral mythology" later on; however, in the struggle against spiritualistic tendencies in psychopathology, Meynert's views played a major role in their time. Meynert's significance as one of the founders of the histology (cytoarchitecture) of the brain—a field subsequently developed by O. and C. Vogt, Brodmann, and others—is especially great. Among Meynert's direct students and followers, the famous Wernicke must be mentioned. Meynert's main works, in addition to those cited above: "Der Bau der Grosshirnrinde u. seine örtlichen Verschiedenheiten" (Neuwied, 1867–68); "Zur Mechanik des Gehirnbaus" (Vienna, 1874).