Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Spitzka, Edward Charles

SPITZKA, Edward Charles, physician, b. in New York city, 10 Nov., 1852. He was educated at the College of the city of New York, and graduated at the medical department of the University of New York in 1873, after which he studied at the medical schools in Leipsic and Vienna, serving in the latter as assistant in the laboratory of embryology and histology. On his return he settled in practice in New York, making a specialty of the treatment of internal diseases, particularly of the nervous system. In 1880-'3 he was professor of medical jurisprudence and the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system in the New York post-graduate medical school. He has been consulting physician of the Northeastern dispensary since 1884. Dr. Spitzka has made original investigations in the anatomy of the nervous system, and has discovered the interoptic lobes of saurians, the absence of pyramid tracts in the cetacea, and numerous facts in the anatomy of the human brain. He has been frequently consulted as a medical expert in cases where insanity or injury to the brain or spinal cord was a subject of litigation. Conspicuous among these was his attitude in the trial of President Garfield's assassin, where both prosecution and defence endeavored to retain his services, but, failing, secured his attendance through an attachment. He then testified to the prisoner's insanity, and was the only expert that did so. Dr. Spitzka is a member of various societies, has been secretary of the Society of medical jurisprudence and medicine since 1886, and was vice-president of the section in neurology at the Ninth international medical congress in 1887. In 1877 his essay on the somatic etiology of insanity gained the W. and S. Tuke prize, which is given in international competition by the British medico-physiological association, and in 1878, by his paper on the action of strychnine, he won the William A. Hammond prize, which is awarded by the American neurological association. He is the author of numerous contributions to medical journals, and was one of the editors of the “American Journal of Neurology” in 1881-'4. The sections on diseases of the spinal cord and on inflammation, anæmia, and hyperanæmia of the brain in William Pepper's “System of Medicine” (Philadelphia, 1887) were written by him, and he has published “Treatise on Insanity” (New York, 1883).