Alexander Carl Otto Westphal (18 May 1863,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

– 9 January 1941,

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

) was a German

neurologist Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...

and

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

. He was the son of the psychiatrist

Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal (23 March 1833, in Berlin – 27 January 1890, in Kreuzlingen) was a German psychiatrist from Berlin. He was the son of Otto Carl Friedrich Westphal (1800–1879) and Karoline Friederike Heine and the father of Alexa ...

(1833–1890) and Clara Mendelssohn and the grandson of

Otto Carl Friedrich Westphal Otto Carl Friedrich Westphal (1800 – 1879) was a German physician and Geheimer Sanitätsrath (privy medical counsellor). He wrote on the human eye and on optics. He was interested in environmental impacts on eyesight, including light quality, and ...

. Alexander Westphal studied at

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

and

, receiving his doctorate at Berlin in 1888. He then became an assistant to Wilhelm Heinrich Erb (1840-1921) in Heidelberg and to Heinrich Curschmann (1846–1910) in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

. In 1892 he became the head physician of the department for nervous diseases at the Berlin

Charité The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine) is one of Europe's largest university hospitals, affiliated with Humboldt University and Free University Berlin. With numerous Collaborative Research Cen ...

under

Friedrich Jolly Friedrich Jolly (24 November 1844 – 4 January 1904) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist who was a native of Heidelberg, and the son of physicist Philipp von Jolly (1809–1884). He studied medicine at University of Göttingen, Göttin ...

(1844–1904), subsequently qualifying in the fields

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial psych ...

and

neurology Neurology (from el, wikt:νεῦρον, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix wikt:-logia, -logia, "study of") is the branch of specialty (medicine), medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of co ...

(1894). In 1902 he accepted an invitation to the

University of Greifswald The University of Greifswald (; german: Universität Greifswald), formerly also known as “Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald“, is a public research university located in Greifswald, Germany, in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pom ...

as an associate professor, and two years later relocated to the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

as full professor. Westphal made contributions towards the literature involving

diabetes insipidus Diabetes insipidus (DI), recently renamed to Arginine Vasopressin Deficiency (AVP-D) and Arginine Vasopressin Resistance (AVP-R), is a condition characterized by large amounts of dilute urine and increased thirst. The amount of urine produce ...

leukaemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

and pseudoleukaemia, as well as a variety of topics in psychiatry and neurology. He is eponymously associated with the "Westphal-Pilcz sign" (neurotonic pupillary reaction), a medical indicator named in conjunction with Polish neurologist Jan Pilcz (1870–1931). He also produced a compilation of a complete edition of his father's scientific works. He trained a number of significant scientists, including

Otto Lowenstein Otto Lowenstein (7 May 1889 – 25 March 1965) was a German-American neuropsychiatrist who was a native of Osnabrück. He grew up in Preußisch Oldendorf, the son of Julius Lowenstein, a merchant, and Henriette Grunewald, into a Jewish family, a ...

(1889–1965), with whom he was co-author of ''Experimentelle und klinische Studien zur Physiologie und Pathologie der Pupillenbewegungen, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Schizophrenie'' (part of the series, ''Abhandlungen aus der Neurologie, Psychiatrie, Psychologie und ihren Grenzgebieten''.WorldCat Title
Experimentelle und klinische Studien zur Physiologie und Pathologie der Pupillenbewegungen

References

Sources

at www.jneuro-ophthalmology.com

External links

* ttp://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/1829.html Alexander Karl Otto Westphal@

Who Named It ''Whonamedit?'' is an online English-language dictionary of medical eponyms and the people associated with their identification. Though it is a dictionary, many eponyms and persons are presented in extensive articles with comprehensive bibliograph ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Westphal, Alexander Carl Otto 1863 births 1941 deaths 19th-century German Jews German psychiatrists German neurologists Mendelssohn family Physicians from Berlin