Paul Julius Möbius
Encyclopedia
Neurologist
A neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...
who was born in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
. Prior to entering the medical field in 1873, he studied philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
at the Universities of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
, Jena and Marburg.
Möbius spent most of his medical career in Leipzig, doing clinical work as well as being a physician in his private practice. In the early 1880s, he was an assistant to neurologist Adolph Strümpell
Adolph Strümpell
Ernst Adolf Gustav Gottfried von Strümpell was a German neurologist who was born at Neu-Autz Estate, Courland Governorate...
at the Medizinischen Poliklinik. He was a prolific writer and is well-known for publications in the fields of neurophysiology
Neurophysiology
Neurophysiology is a part of physiology. Neurophysiology is the study of nervous system function...
and endocrinology
Endocrinology
Endocrinology is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions called hormones, the integration of developmental events such as proliferation, growth, and differentiation and the coordination of...
. He was also an editor of Schmidt's Jahrbücher für die gesammte Medicin.
Möbius made pioneer contributions towards the understanding of how some mental illnesses occur. He is credited for providing a distinction between exogenous
Exogenous
Exogenous refers to an action or object coming from outside a system. It is the opposite of endogenous, something generated from within the system....
and endogenous
Endogenous
Endogenous substances are those that originate from within an organism, tissue, or cell. Endogenous retroviruses are caused by ancient infections of germ cells in humans, mammals and other vertebrates...
nerve disorders, and introduced ideas concerning the etiology
Etiology
Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" ....
of hysteria
Hysteria
Hysteria, in its colloquial use, describes unmanageable emotional excesses. People who are "hysterical" often lose self-control due to an overwhelming fear that may be caused by multiple events in one's past that involved some sort of severe conflict; the fear can be centered on a body part, or,...
.
His name is associated with Möbius syndrome
Mobius syndrome
Möbius syndrome is an extremely rare congenital neurological disorder which is characterized by facial paralysis and the inability to move the eyes from side to side. Most people with Möbius syndrome are born with complete facial paralysis and cannot close their eyes or form facial expressions...
, a disease he identified as "nuclear atrophy". This is a rare type of palsy
Palsy
In medicine, palsy is the paralysis of a body part, often accompanied by loss of sensation and by uncontrolled body movements, such as shaking. Medical conditions involving palsy include cerebral palsy , brachial palsy , and Bell's palsy ....
associated with paralysis
Paralysis
Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor. A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed...
of the cranial nerves VI and VII
Facial nerve
The facial nerve is the seventh of twelve paired cranial nerves. It emerges from the brainstem between the pons and the medulla, and controls the muscles of facial expression, and functions in the conveyance of taste sensations from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue and oral cavity...
. This results in the patient having a masklike facial expression along with many other abnormalities such as drooling, crossed eyes, speech difficulties and problems swallowing.
Other eponyms associated with Möbius:
- Leyden-Möbius syndrome: muscular dystrophyMuscular dystrophyMuscular dystrophy is a group of muscle diseases that weaken the musculoskeletal system and hamper locomotion. Muscular dystrophies are characterized by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, defects in muscle proteins, and the death of muscle cells and tissue.In the 1860s, descriptions of boys who...
in the pelvic region; named along with neurologist Ernst Viktor von LeydenErnst Viktor von LeydenErnst 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...
. - Möbius' signMöbius signMöbius sign is a clinical sign in which there is an inability to maintain convergence of the eyes. It is found in patients with Graves' disease.The sign is named after Paul Julius Möbius....
: weakness of eye convergence; a situation when one eye converges and the other diverges when looking at the tip of one’s nose.
Work
Today his most historically significant contribution to science is his work on the psychogenics of psychiatric and mental illnesses, such as hysteriaHysteria
Hysteria, in its colloquial use, describes unmanageable emotional excesses. People who are "hysterical" often lose self-control due to an overwhelming fear that may be caused by multiple events in one's past that involved some sort of severe conflict; the fear can be centered on a body part, or,...
. For the first time in the German-speaking world he postulated psychological causes of disease. For this reason and because of his convincing arguments for the therapeutical effects of electrotherapy, Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
referred to Möbius as one of the fathers of psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
.
A further important contribution is to have given his friend, the psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin
Emil Kraepelin
Emil Kraepelin was a German psychiatrist. H.J. Eysenck's Encyclopedia of Psychology identifies him as the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, as well as of psychopharmacology and psychiatric genetics. Kraepelin believed the chief origin of psychiatric disease to be biological and genetic...
, important ideas to the differentiation and systematisation of mental illness. Moebius had only made one, on the causes of diseases based classification of nervous and mental diseases. Its subdivision in endogenous and exogenous errors has long been preserved and was leading the way for the psychiatry and neurology of the 20th century. Endogenous errors established in the nervous system itself, manifested as degeneration
Degeneration
The idea of degeneration had significant influence on science, art and politics from the 1850s to the 1950s. The social theory developed consequently from Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution...
. In the long term Möbius thus paved to way for eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
and the crimes of psychic and neurotic disease in German naziism. Also, Möbius syndrome bears his name, which he first described in 1888; and he pointed the way to understanding the cause of the endocrinological disorder Graves' disease
Graves' disease
Graves' disease is an autoimmune disease where the thyroid is overactive, producing an excessive amount of thyroid hormones...
.
Moebius won a still dubious fame by his pamphlet "On the Physiological Idiocy of Women" (Halle: Marhold 1900). He received the greatest contemporary recognition for carving out his own territory with this work. The key message of the work not only postulated that "idiocy of woman", but also tried to impose this on already dubious methods. Moebius received plaudits for this piece, but also criticism, such as The Anti-feminists (1902) by Hedwig Dohm
Hedwig Dohm
Marianne Adelaide Hedwig Dohm born Schlesinger, later Schleh was a German feminist, and author. She was one of the first feminist thinkers to see gender roles as a result of socialization and not biological determinism.-Family:She was born in Berlin to Jewish parents, as a daughter of Wilhelmine...
. In further response to Moebius were written Women and Intellectualism by Oda Olberg in 1903 and Feminism and Science by Johanna Elberskirchen in 1902. Elberskirchen said: "The truth is that when scholars make opinions concerning females, they are too much man (Mann) and too little or not at all scientifically reasoning human (Mensch)." (Elberskirchen 1902 p. 4) In other writings (such as Sex and Head Size) Moebius tried to support his theses but his comments actually showed his misunderstanding of brain anatomy and brain physiology. "On the Physiological Idiocy of Women" went through eight editions during his lifetime. In the later editions Moebius published letters from women and men which he had received for and against the book. These letters accounted for almost half of the book at the end.
In the play Weiningers Nacht by Joshua Sobol, Moebius appears as a follower of the philosopher Otto Weininger
Otto Weininger
Otto Weininger was an Austrian philosopher. In 1903, he published the book Geschlecht und Charakter , which gained popularity after his suicide at the age of 23...
, whom he accused of plagiarism.
Partial bibliography
- Grundriss des deutschen Militärsanitätswesens. Leipzig, 1878.
- Über hereditäre Nervenkrankheiten. (Volkmann’s) Sammlung klinischer Vorträge. Leipzig, 1879.
- Das Nervensystem des Menschen. Leipzig, 1880.
- Die Nervosität. Leipzig, 1882; 3rd edition, 1906.
- Über angeborene Facialis-Abducenslähmung. Münchener mediznische Wochenschrift, 1888.
- Über den physiologischen Schwachsinn des Weibes. Slg. Abh. Nervenkrkh. Volume 3, H. 3. Halle, 1900; 9th edition, 1908.
- Beiträge zur Lehre von den Geschlechtsunterschieden. Halle, 1903-1904.
- Im Grenzlande. Aufsätze über Sachen des Glaubens. Leipzig, 1905.
External links
- Paul Julius Möbius @ Who Named ItWho Named ItWho Named It? is an English-language dictionary of medical eponyms and the people associated with their identification. Though this is a dictionary, many eponyms and persons are presented in extensive articles with comprehensive bibliographies. It is hosted in Norway and maintained by medical...
- NCBI On the 150th birthday of Paul Julius Möbius (1853-1907)