Gabriel Anton was an Austrian neurologist

Neurology

Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...

 and psychiatrist

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

. He is primarily remembered for his studies of psychiatric conditions arising from damage to the cerebral cortex

Cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex is a sheet of neural tissue that is outermost to the cerebrum of the mammalian brain. It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It is constituted of up to six horizontal layers, each of which has a different...

 and the basal ganglia

Basal ganglia

The basal ganglia are a group of nuclei of varied origin in the brains of vertebrates that act as a cohesive functional unit. They are situated at the base of the forebrain and are strongly connected with the cerebral cortex, thalamus and other brain areas...

.

Gabriel Anton was a native of Saaz

Žatec

Žatec is an old town in the Czech Republic, in Louny District, Ústí nad Labem Region. It has a population of 19,813 .The earliest historical reference to Sacz is in the Latin chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg of 1004. During the 11th century it belonged to the Vršovci - a powerful Czech...

, Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

, and in 1882 received his doctorate at Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

. In 1887 he went to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 to work with Theodor Meynert

Theodor Meynert

Theodor Hermann Meynert was a German-Austrian neuropathologist and anatomist who was born in Dresden.In 1861 he earned his medical doctorate, and in 1875 became director of the psychiatric clinic associated with the University of Vienna. One of his better known students in Vienna was Sigmund...

 (1833–1892), whom Anton regarded as a major influence to his medical career. In 1891 he moved to Innsbruck

Innsbruck

- Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus...

, where he was a professor of psychiatry and director of the university clinic. Later (1894) he worked at the same disciplines at Graz

Graz

The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

, and in 1905 succeeded Karl Wernicke

Karl Wernicke

Carl Wernicke was a German physician, anatomist, psychiatrist and neuropathologist. He earned his medical degree at the University of Breslau...

 (1848–1905) in Halle an der Saale.

Anton is remembered for his pioneer contributions to the field of neurosurgery

Neurosurgery

Neurosurgery is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spine, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and extra-cranial cerebrovascular system.-In the United States:In...

. In collaboration with surgeon

Surgeon

In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...

s Friedrich Gustav von Bramann

Friedrich Gustav von Bramann

Friedrich Gustav von Bramann was a German surgeon born in Wilhelmsberg near Darkehmen, East Prussia.He studied medicine at the University of Königsberg where he joined the Corps Hansea. He became assistant surgeon to Ernst von Bergmann at the Charité in Berlin...

 (1854–1913) and Viktor Schmieden

Viktor Schmieden

Viktor Schmieden was a German surgeon born in Berlin. In 1897 he earned his medical doctorate from the University of Bonn, and subsequently worked in hospitals in Göttingen, Berlin and Bonn...

 (1874–1945), he proposed new procedures for treatment of hydrocephalus

Hydrocephalus

Hydrocephalus , also known as "water in the brain," is a medical condition in which there is an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles, or cavities, of the brain. This may cause increased intracranial pressure inside the skull and progressive enlargement of the head,...

. This included the Balkenstich method and the suboccipital puncture

Suboccipital puncture

A suboccipital puncture or cisternal puncture is a diagnostic procedure that can be performed in order to collect a sample of cerebrospinal fluid for biochemical, microbiological, and cytological analysis, or rarely to relieve increased intracranial pressure...

.

The Anton–Babinski syndrome is named after him and Joseph Babiński

Joseph Babinski

Joseph Jules François Félix Babinski was a French neurologist of Polish descent. He is best known for his 1896 description of the Babinski sign, a pathological plantar reflex indicative of corticospinal tract damage....

 (1857–1932). Anton provided a detailed description and explanation of visual anosognosia

Anosognosia

Anosognosia /æˌnɒsɒgˈnəʊsɪə/ is a condition in which a person who suffers disability seems unaware of the existence of his or her disability. Unlike denial, which is a defense mechanism, anosognosia is rooted in physiology...

 and asomatoagnosia associated with this condition. Asomatoagnosia is a rare phenomenon where a patient is in denial of a body part. Also, with Paul Ferdinand Schilder

Paul Ferdinand Schilder

Paul Ferdinand Schilder was an Austrian psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, researcher and author of numerous scientific publications. He was a pupil of Sigmund Freud...

 (1886–1940), Anton performed important studies of movements in patients suffering from chorea and athetosis

Athetosis

Athetosis is a symptom characterized by involuntary convoluted, writhing movements of the fingers, arms, legs, and neck. Movements typical of athetosis are sometimes called athetoid movements. Lesions to the brain are most often the direct cause of the symptoms, particularly to thecorpus striatum...

.

Selected publications

• Störungen im Oberflächenwachstum des menschlichen Grosshirns. Zeitschrift für Heilkunde, Prague, 1888.
• Hydrocephalus und Gehirndruck. Medizinische Jahrbücher, Wien, 1889.
• Über den Ausdruck der Gemütsbewegung beim gesunden und kranken Menschen. Psych Wschr, 1900; 2: 165–169. (Anton–Babinski syndrome)
• Vier Vorträge über Entwicklungsstörungen beim Kinde. Berlin, 1908.
• Über krankhafte moralische Abartung im Kindesalter und über den Heilwert der Affekte. with Fritz Gustav Bramann (1854–1913). Halle 1910.
• Behandlung der angeborenen und erworbenen Gehirnkrankheiten mit Hilfe des Balkenstiches. with Fritz Gustav Bramann. Berlin 1913.