Ludwig Merzbacher was a German neuropathologist and psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

 who was born in Florence, Italy.

In 1900 he received his medical doctorate from the University of Strassburg, and remained in Strassburg as an assistant at the physiological

Physiology

Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...

 institute. Afterwards he worked at psychiatric clinics in Freiburg

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

 (1902–04) and Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

 (1904–06), and in 1906 was habilitated for psychiatry at the University of Tübingen. From 1906 until 1910 he worked at the psychiatric clinic in Tübingen

Tübingen

Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...

, where he was an assistant to Robert Gaupp

Robert Gaupp

Robert Eugen Gaupp was a German psychiatrist and neurologist who was a native of Neuenbürg, Württemberg.Gaupp was an assistant to Carl Wernicke and Karl Bonhoeffer at Breslau, and afterwards worked with Emil Kraepelin at the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich...

 (1870–1953). During this period of time he also spent several months performing research at Alois Alzheimer

Alois Alzheimer

Aloysius "Alois" Alzheimer, was a German psychiatrist and neuropathologist and a colleague of Emil Kraepelin. Alzheimer is credited with identifying the first published case of "presenile dementia", which Kraepelin would later identify as Alzheimer's disease....

's laboratory in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

.

In 1910 Merzbacher moved to Argentina, where he was appointed head of the laboratory in the psychiatric clinic at Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

. From 1914 to 1919 he was in charge of the department of pathological anatomy of the Clínica Modelö in Buenos Aires, and beginning in 1924 was chief physician at the "German hospital" in Buenos Aires.

He is remembered for his pathological studies of a dysmyelinating central nervous system

Central nervous system

The central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that integrates the information that it receives from, and coordinates the activity of, all parts of the bodies of bilaterian animals—that is, all multicellular animals except sponges and radially symmetric animals such as jellyfish...

 disorder that is now referred to as Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease

Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease

Pelizaeus–Merzbacher disease is a rare central nervous system disorder in which coordination, motor abilities, and intellectual function are delayed to variable extents.-Classification:...

 (PMD). This eponymous disease is named along with German balneologist Friedrich Christoph Pelizaeus

Friedrich Christoph Pelizaeus

Friedrich Christoph Pelizaeus was a German balneologist and neurologist who was a native of Rietberg.In 1874 he earned his medical doctorate from the University of Würzburg, and afterwards was an assistant to Karl Friedrich Ferdinand Runge at the resort in Nassau an der Lahn...

(1851–1942). Merzbacher described his research of the disorder in a 1910 paper titled Eine eigenartige familiärhereditäre Erkrankungform.