Wednesday, November 7, 2012


19th Century Medical Advances Expansion:

Original Presenters: John De-Souza, Matt Kinzer, Patrick Biernat

     I chose this presentation on a couple grounds. First, it was presented very well and organized in a way that was easy to follow. The speakers did a good job of finding information that was interesting and covered it more deeply than the other groups. As well, the group was well prepared and did not sit and stare at the screen or drone on about matters that are ultimately boring and useless for our purposes (i.e. dates, minor details, etc.). Secondly, I picked this because it seemed like an interesting topic with many directions for research, there were many interesting people and devices invented. All in all, it appears that many significant and pertinent advances were made by the German people…
Thus, my expansion on the topic of 19th century medical advances:

·         Gottlieb Burckhardt

o   A Swiss born psychiatrist whose is regarded as performing the first modern psychosurgical operation. Most of his studies/research were conducted in Germany.
o   Conducted his studies at the Universities of Basel, Gottingen and Berlin.
§  Doctorate was conferred at Basel
o   Continued studies at Basel and was granted position of Privatdozent (lecturer)
§  Lectured on nervous and mental disease
§  Studies revolved around the nervous system and treatment with electrotherapies.
o   Proposed many articles on the anatomy and functionality of the brain.
o   He became appointed the title of Medical Director in 1882
§  Performed various surgical procedures on psychiatric patients and published findings.
·         One of the first into the field of psychosurgery with an cortical operation on 6 patients.
o   He felt that disorders stemmed from ‘disordered brains’ thus he sought surgery to correct this.
o   All but 2 of the patients suffered adverse consequences but were notably more ‘quiet’
o   This stemmed from his view that it is better to do something than nothing. Essentially, he denounced ‘bad’ procedures.
·         This was a primitive precursor to lobotomy procedures and was Gottlieb’s last bit of research before his death.


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