Historic review: a short history of neuropediatrics in Germany between 1850 and 1950
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(2020) 2:24
REVIEW
Neurological Research and Practice
Open Access
Historic review: a short history of neuropediatrics in Germany between 1850 and 1950 Hans Michael Strassburg1,2
Abstract Since the middle of the nineteenth century, there has been increasing knowledge about the diagnosis and therapy of diseases of the central and peripheral nervous system and muscle in children. The leading causes were cerebral palsy, epilepsy, inflammatory and degenerative diseases, and the innate reduction in intelligence. Because of the often lack of healing options, many pediatricians had little interest in treating these children and left their care to the pedagogues and psychologists. Pioneers of child neurology in the German-speaking countries were Ludwig Mauthner, Franz von Rinecker, Julius Zappert, and Georg Peritz. Especially with the beginning of the National Socialist terror regime, rigorous treatment methods were used, the care facilities for disabled children were closed, and these were either actively murdered or interned under inhumane conditions. In this time, some specialists in neuropediatrics had an ambivalent position between the care for their patients and the selection for their elimination. After 1950, new findings in diagnostics and therapy, especially from Anglo-American countries, played a significant role in the rise of neuropediatrics in Germany. Keywords: Child neurology, Neuropediatrics, 1850 till 1950, Ludwig Mauthner, Georg Peritz, Philipp Schwartz, NSera
Background Neuropediatrics or child neurology includes the diagnosis and treatment of congenital and acquired diseases of the central and peripheral nervous system and muscles in children and adolescents. Historical aspects of individual neuropediatric clinical symptoms were published in many places, especially about epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Especially after 1950, unexpected advances in diagnostics and therapy were achieved through the development of entirely new techniques, particularly electrophysiology, imaging, and molecular genetics. Nevertheless, it is worth looking back at the history of the field to get to know its roots better.
Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Gerbrunn, Germany 2 Former Universitäts-Kinderklinik Würzburg, Josef Schneiderstr. 2, 97080 Würzburg, Germany
Introduction In the medical literature of the late nineteenth century, the diagnoses cretinism, syphilis, and rickets were primarily used for congenital disabilities, which according to modern ideas, are no longer comprehensible and which hide many very different clinical symptoms. In public and, not least, by representatives of the churches, children with developmental disorders and disabilities were viewed as a punishment from God or as a result of “original sin” well into the twentieth century. They were repeatedly associated with an allegedly sinful lifestyle on the part of the parents [1, 2].. From today’s perspective, other explanations for congenital and early acquired “disabilities” were severe epilepsy, metabolic disorders (e.g., PKU), poliomyelit
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