- Sergei Korsakoff
Sergei Sergeievich Korsakoff ( _ru. Сергей Сергеевич Корсаков;
January 22 1854 ,Vladimir -May 1 1900 ,Moscow ) was aRussia n neuropsychiatrist.Sergei Korsakoff was the first of great Russian neuropsychiatrists. He studied
medicine at the University of Moscow, graduated in 1875 and subsequently becamephysician to "Preobrazhenski" ( _ru. Преображенский) mental hospital. From 1876 to 1879 he gained postgraduate experience in theclinic for nervous diseases underAleksei Kozhevnikov . Histhesis "Alcoholic Paralysis" won him the medicaldoctorate in 1887. In 1892 he was appointed professor extraordinarius at a new university psychiatric clinic. During this time he visitedVienna where he was a pupil ofTheodor Meynert . He was "ordinarius" ofneurology andpsychiatry from 1899 until hisdeath the next year.Korsakoff was one of the greatest neuropsychiatrists of the 19th century and published numerous works in
neuropathology ,psychiatry , andforensic medicine . Apart from his studies onalcohol icpsychosis , he introduced the concept ofparanoia and wrote an excellenttextbook on psychiatry. Korsakoff studied the effects ofalcoholism on thenervous system and drew attention to several cases of alcoholicpolyneuropathy with distinctive mentalsymptom s. An able organiser, he was instrumental in founding the Moscow Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists. The "Zhurnal nevropatologii i psikhiatrii imenia Korsakov" ( _ru. Журнал невропатологии и психиатрии имени Корсакова, Korsakoff's Journal of Neuropathology and Psychiatry) was named after him.Associated eponyms
* "Korsakoff's psychosis and syndrome": Amnestic-confabulatory syndrome with three salient features (1) severe
memory defect, especially for recent events; (2)confabulation , i.e. falsification of memory in an alert, responsive individual; and (3)polyneuropathy ("psychosis polyneuritica"), usually associated withalcoholism andmalnutrition .
* "Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome " or "Polioencephalitis hemorrhagica superior" associated with "Korsakoff's psychosis": A condition characterized bynystagmus , ocular and conjugategaze palsie s,ataxia andpsychosis due to nutritional deficiency, more specifically ofthiamine and observed mainly, though not exclusively, in alcoholics.Bibliography
* Barry G. Firkin and J.A. Whitworth: "Dictionary of Medical Eponyms". Parthenon Publishing Group. New edition 2002
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