Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal practised at a period when medicine itself was being rebuilt on new foundations.
The record lists Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal as German neurologist (1833–1890).
Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal was born at Berlin in 1833. His recorded nationality is Germany. He trained at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Heidelberg University.
Anaesthesia, antisepsis and germ theory arrived within fifty years and made modern surgery possible for the first time.
His posts were held at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Charité.
The recorded fields of work are psychiatry.
Clinical knowledge is accumulated slowly and revised often, usually at some cost.
That the work was done from Germany matters: hospitals, training and research funding are unevenly distributed, and they decide which questions can be asked.
Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal died in 1890, aged 57. What survives is the change in practice, which is how a medical life is actually measured.
Achievements
- Held posts at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Charité
- Fields: psychiatry
