Ernst Sträussler

Ernst Sträussler (17 June 1872 – 11 July 1959) was an Austrian neuropathologist.

Biography

Ernst Sträussler was born on 17 June 1872 in Uherské Hradiště, Moravia, Austria-Hungary. In 1895, he earned his medical doctorate at the University of Vienna, and afterwards worked at the psychiatric clinic of Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1857–1940). In 1907 he was habilitated for psychiatry and neurology in Prague, where in 1915 he attained the title of professor extraordinary. In 1919, he returned to Vienna.^[1]

Sträussler is remembered for his work in forensic psychiatry, as well as his research involving the histopathology of the central nervous system.^[1] With neurologist Georg Koskinas (1885–1975) he performed important studies involving malaria inoculations as a type of therapy for progressive general paresis.^[2]

In 1936, with neurologists Josef Gerstmann (1887–1969) and Ilya Scheinker (1902–1954), he described a rare prion disease that is usually regarded as a variant of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. Today this condition is known as Gerstmann–Sträussler–Scheinker syndrome (GSS).^[3]

He died on 11 July 1959 in Vienna.

Works

• Anlage- und Bildungsfehler des Centralnervensystems, Anlagekrankheiten, Missbildungen, Heredodegeneration. Handbuch der Neurolologie des Ohres. Volume 2, 1. Berlin and Vienna, 1928.
• Gerstmann, Josef; Sträussler, Ernst; Scheinker, I. (December 1935). "Über eine eigenartige hereditär- familiäre Erkrankung des Zentralnervensystems". Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie (in German). 154 (1): 736–762. doi:10.1007/BF02865827. S2CID 86904496.