Wernicke

WERNICKE, Karl (Karl Wernicke, 1848-1905), a neuropathologist and psychiatrist, professor of psychiatry at Breslau, then at Halle, where he died from a lesion of the left hemisphere of the human brain, which caused the discovery of sensory aphasia, which soon after Broca established the motor center of speech, strongly contributed to the restoration of the theory of brain localization, compromised in the first half of the 19th century by Gall's phrenological fancies. Wernicke is the creator of an original psychiatric system, the basis of which lies in a strictly anatomical understanding of mental disorders. W. divided psychoses into 3 groups: allo-psychoses, somatopsychoses, and autopsychoses, depending on which of the three hypothetical centers (center of knowledge of the external world or of one's own body or of one's own "self") is violated in its basic functions. From individual diseases, W. described presbyophrenia; from characteristic psychopathological symptoms, he indicated "overvalued idea". In his clinical activity, W. was interested in the exact description of symptom complexes; at the same time, he also described the form of Polioencephalitis acuta haemorrhagica superior. Main works: "Der aphasi-sche Symptomenkomplex", Breslau, 1874; "Grundzuge der Psychiatrie", B., 1906; "Lehr-buchd. Gehirnkrankheiten", Kassel-Berlin, 1881-1883; "Gesammelte Aufsatze u. kri-tische Referate, zur Pathologie d. Nerveii-systems", Berlin, 1893. Wernicke's aphasia, center, see Aphasia. -Wernicke's disease, see Polioep-cephalitis. -Wernicke's phenomena, see Hemiapopical reaction.