Alexander Carl Otto Westphal

Alexander Carl Otto Westphal (1863-1941) was the son of the psychiatrist Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal (1833-1890) and Clara Mendelssohn and the grandson of Otto Carl Friedrich Westphal.

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Alexander Westphal studied at Heidelberg and Berlin receiving his doctorate at Berlin in 1888. Westphal then became an assistant to both Wilhelm Heinrich Erb (1840-1921) and Hans Curschmann (1875-1950) in Leipzig. In 1892 he became the head physician of the department for nervous diseases at the Berlin Charité under Friedrich Jolly (1844-1904), and qualified in psychiatry and neurology in 1894. In 1902 he accepted an invitation to Greifswald as professor extraordinary, and in 1904 went to Bonn as full professor.

Westphal contributed to the literature on diabetes insipidus, leukaemia and pseudoleukaemia, as well as a variety of topics in psychiatry and neurology. He is eponymously associated with the Westphal-Piltz syndrome (neurotonic pupillary reaction) and the Westphal-Bernhard syndrome (primary-stenosing papillitis.) Westphal also occasioned a complete edition of his fathers' scientific works. He trained a number of significant scientists, including Otto Lowenstein (1889-1965).