Abstract
PROF. WILHBLM HEINBICH ERB, a pioneer in neuropathology and electrotherapy, was born at Winneweiler in the Palatinate on November 30, 1840. He received his medical education at Heidelberg, where he was assistant to Nikolaus Friedreich, and qualified in 1864. After working with Buhl at Munich on morbid anatomy, he was appointed extraordinary professor of special pathology and treatment at Leipzig in 1867 and full professor in 1880. Three years later he was transferred to the corresponding chair at Heidelberg, where he remained until his retirement in 1917. His first work was in connexion with toxicology, histology and therapeutics, but afterwards he devoted himself almost entirely to neurology. Erb's name, either alone or in association with those of other neurologists such as Duclenne, Charcot and Goldflam, has been given to several nervous diseases. He was also the first to describe the knee-jerk, independently of Westphal, and simultaneously with Founder demonstrated the close etiological association between syphilis and tabes and general paralysis. He died on October 29, 1921.
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Wilhelm Erb. Nature 146, 715 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/146715a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/146715a0