Martin Bernhardt was a noted German neuropathologist.

Bernhardt was a native of Potsdam

Potsdam

Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....

. In 1867 he received his medical doctorate at the University of Berlin, where he was a student of Rudolf Virchow

Rudolf Virchow

Rudolph Carl Virchow was a German doctor, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician, known for his advancement of public health...

 (1821-1902) and Ludwig Traube

Ludwig Traube (physician)

Ludwig Traube was a German physician and co-founder of the experimental pathology in Germany.-Biography:...

 (1818-1878). Subsequently he became an assistant to Ernst Viktor von Leyden

Ernst Viktor von Leyden

Ernst Viktor von Leyden was a German internist from Danzig.Leyden studied medicine at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Institut in Berlin, and was a pupil of Johann Lukas Schönlein and Ludwig Traube . He was a medical professor at several universities, including Königsberg, Strassburg and Berlin...

 (1832-1910) at the university clinic at Königsberg

University of Königsberg

The University of Königsberg was the university of Königsberg in East Prussia. It was founded in 1544 as second Protestant academy by Duke Albert of Prussia, and was commonly known as the Albertina....

, and afterwards worked at the Berlin-Charité

Charité

The Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin is the medical school for both the Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin. After the merger with their fourth campus in 2003, the Charité is one of the largest university hospitals in Europe....

 under Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal

Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal

Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal was a German neurologist and psychiatrist from Berlin. He was the son of Otto Carl Friedrich Westphal and Karoline Friederike Heine and the father of Alexander Carl Otto Westphal...

 (1833-1890). After military service in the Franco-Prussian War

Franco-Prussian War

The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...

, he returned to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 as a specialist in neuropathology

Neuropathology

Neuropathology is the study of disease of nervous system tissue, usually in the form of either small surgical biopsies or whole autopsy brains. Neuropathology is a subspecialty of anatomic pathology, neurology, and neurosurgery...

, and in 1882 attained the title of "professor extraordinarius".

Bernhardt published several treatises on neurological

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,...

 diseases and electrotherapy

Electrotherapy

Electrotherapy is the use of electrical energy as a medical treatment In medicine, the term electrotherapy can apply to a variety of treatments, including the use of electrical devices such as deep brain stimulators for neurological disease. The term has also been applied specifically to the use of...

, and in 1885 became editor-in-chief of the Centralblatt für die Medizinischen Wissenschaften. With Russian neuropathologist Vladimir Karlovich Roth

Vladimir Karlovich Roth

Vladimir Karlovich Roth — sometimes Vladimir Karlovich Rot — was a Russian neuropathologist.Roth was native of Orel. He studied medicine at the University of Moscow, where he graduated in 1871. From 1877 to 1879 he travelled abroad, and worked in clinics at Vienna, Berlin and Paris...

 (1848-1916), the eponymous "Bernhardt-Roth paraesthesia" is named. This condition is also referred to as meralgia paraesthetica

Meralgia paraesthetica

Meralgia paraesthetica , or meralgia paresthetica — also called Bernhardt-Roth syndrome — is numbness or pain in the outer thigh not caused by injury to the thigh, but by injury to a nerve that extends from the thigh to the spinal column.This chronic neurological disorder involves a single...

, and is characterized by numbness or pain in the outer thigh

Thigh

In humans the thigh is the area between the pelvis and the knee. Anatomically, it is part of the lower limb.The single bone in the thigh is called the femur...

 that is caused by injury to the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve.

• Associated eponym:
• Bernhardt's formula: A formula used to calculate an adult's ideal weight in kilogram
  Kilogram
  The kilogram or kilogramme , also known as the kilo, is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram , which is almost exactly equal to the mass of one liter of water...
  
  s; It is found by measuring a persons' height in centimeters, times his/her chest circumference in centimeters and dividing by 240.

Selected publications

• Die Sensibilitätsverhältnisse der Haut; 1873
• Beiträge zurSymptomatologie und Diagnostik der Hirngeschwülste; 1881
• Electricitätslehre für Mediziner und Elektrotherapie 1884, (in collaboration with Isidor Rosenthal
  Isidor Rosenthal
  Isidor Rosenthal was a German physiologist who was a native of Labischin.In 1859 he received his doctorate from the University of Berlin, where he was a student of Emil du Bois-Reymond . Afterwards he remained in Berlin as an assistant at the institute of physiology, where in 1867 he became an...
  
  (1836-1915).
• Erkrankungen der Peripherischen Nerven; 1895-1897.