Christfried Jakob (1866 1956)
Bavarian born Alfons Maria Jakob (1884 1931) Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Hamburg, after whom Jakob Creutzfeldt disease is named. Another Jakob, altogether unheeded in the English biomedical literature, is the neuropathologist Christfried (Christofredo) Jakob, 18 years senior to Alfons, also Bavarian born, and considered to be the father of Neurology in Argentina, his adopted homeland. Commanding an impressive background knowledge in philosophy, literary studies and classical music, Jakob dedicated his life to the study of unknown areas of comparative neurobiology with special emphasis on the natural history of the cerebral cortex, descriptive and pathological anatomy and neuropathology [6] psychiatry, neuropsychology [7] neurophilosophy, embryology, zoology, botany, hydrobiology, palaeontology and geography. Christfried Jakob was born on 25 December 1866 in Wornitzostheim. He studied medicine at the University of Erlangen from 1886 1890. For his thesis he studied aortitis syphilitica, under Friedrich Albert von Zenker (1825 1898) In the early 1890s he was assistant to Adolf von Strumpell (1853 1925) at Erlangen Medical Clinic and privately practised medicine in Bamberg [9, 10] Jakob published his first book in 1895, an atlas of the normal and pathological anatomy of the nervous system [1] with lithographs and woodcuts made from original drawings and photographs, and cross sections of the brain showing different layers with the aid of superimposed flaps. The book was duly translated into English, Russian, French and Italian and went through a second edition in 1899. In 1897 Jakob published an atlas of methods of clinical investigation [2] an epitome of internal medicine, which was also translated into French and English. In 1899, through the mediation of Domingo Cabred (1859 1929) the Argentinian Professor of Psychiatry, Jakob went to Argentina to direct the Laboratory of the Psychiatric and Neurological Clinic of Hospicio de las Mercedes at the University of Buenos Aires [9, 10] He was attracted by the prospect of collecting 300 brains per year for pathoanatomical study, as opposed to 2 3 brains he had access to in Germany. His three year contract was later extended until 1910. For a dozen years, Jakob produced works in anatomy [4, 5, 8] neurology, psychopathology and anthropology [3] Lazaros C. Triarhou Manuel del Cerro Christfried Jakob (1866 1956)
Journal of Neurology