Salomon Eberhard Henschen

Salomon Eberhard Henschen (ca. 1901)

Salomon Eberhard Henschen (28 February 1847, Uppsala – 16 December 1930, Stockholm) was a Swedish neurologist.

Son of Lars Wilhelm Henschen and wife Augusta Munck af Rosenschöld.

Beginning in 1862, he studied medicine at Uppsala, later conducting botanical research in Brazil from 1867 to 1869. After his return to Sweden, he resumed his medical studies at Uppsala. In 1874 he relocated to Stockholm, then continued his education in Leipzig (1877).^[1]

From 1878, he worked in the institute of pathology at the University of Uppsala, while in the meantime, practiced medicine at the summer resort in Ronneby. In 1882 he was named professor and director at the clinic of internal medicine in Uppsala. From 1900, he worked at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

Henschen is known for his investigations of aphasia, as well as his systematic studies involving the visual components/pathways of the brain. His Klinische und anatomische Beiträge zur Pathologie des Gehirns (Clinical and anatomical contributions to the pathology of the brain) was published over 25 editions from 1890 to 1930.^[2] In 1919 he described dyscalculia, and later introduced the term "acalculia" to define the impairment of mathematical abilities in individuals with brain damage (1925).^[3][4]

In 1897 he became a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1923/24, he was one of a small group of neurologists who attended to Lenin, following the Soviet leader's third and final stroke. With his son, Folke Henschen (1881-1977), he collaborated on an autopsy of Lenin's brain.^[5]

He was buried in the Uppsala old cemetery.

Maternal great-great-grandfather of Sophie, Hereditary Princess of Liechtenstein.

References

• Pagel: Biographical Dictionary outstanding physicians of the nineteenth century. Berlin, Vienna, 1901, 720-721 Sp. (biography)

External links

• Google Books Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations Into Brain Function By Stanley Finger