Karl Kleist was a German neurologist and psychiatrist who made notable advances in descriptive psychopathology and neuropsychology. His work links to that of Carl Wernicke and Karl Leonhard

Karl Leonhard

Karl Leonhard was a German psychiatrist, who stood in the tradition of Carl Wernicke and Karl Kleist. He created a complex classification of psychotic illnesses called nosological.His work covered Psychology, Psychotherapy, Biological psychiatry and Biological psychology...

. Kleist coined the terms unipolar (‘einpolig’) and bipolar (‘zweipolig’) that are now used in the concepts of Unipolar depression and Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...

. His main publication is in the field of neurology. Localisation of function in the cerebral cortex of man including mapping of cortical functions on brain maps. The work is based on several hundred cases of shot wounded patients of world war I, whose function deficits Kleist deliberately studied and described in detail during their lifetime. Later on by means of brain autopsy he documented the lesion and was, thus, able to localize brain function in each single case doing this also on cytoarchitectonical grounds.

Career

1879: Born 31 January at Mühlhausen, Alsace.

Student at the Universities of Straßburg, Heidelberg, Berlin and Munich.

1902: Graduated in medicine in Munich

1905–1908: Assistant, Neuropsychiatric Clinic, Halle University
(Chair of Neurology and Psychiatry held in succession by Theodor Ziehen

Theodor Ziehen

Georg Theodor Ziehen was a German neurologist and psychiatrist born in Frankfurt am Main. He was the son of noted author, Eduard Ziehen ....

, Carl Wernicke and Gabriel Anton

Gabriel Anton

Gabriel Anton was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. He is primarily remembered for his studies of psychiatric conditions arising from damage to the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia....

)

1908–1909: Six months in Ludwig Edinger

Ludwig Edinger

Ludwig Edinger was an influential German anatomist and neurologist and co-founder of the University of Frankfurt. In 1914 he was also appointed the first German professor of neurology....

’s Neurological Institute in Frankfurt and six months in Alois Alzheimer

Alois Alzheimer

Aloysius "Alois" Alzheimer, was a German psychiatrist and neuropathologist and a colleague of Emil Kraepelin. Alzheimer is credited with identifying the first published case of "presenile dementia", which Kraepelin would later identify as Alzheimer's disease....

’s laboratory in Munich.

1909: Published classic monograph on psychomotor disorders of movement in psychiatric patients.

1909–1914: Senior Physician, Psychiatric Clinic, Erlangen University (directed by Specht)

1914 - 1916. Service in a military hospital on the Western Front. Organised a hospital for injuries and diseases of the nervous system. Worked partly as a neurosurgeon. Experience of the effects of localised brain lesions resulted in Gehirnpathologie, published in 1934.

1916 - 1920: Professor of Psychiatry, University of Rostock.

1920 - 1950: Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Frankfurt am Main and Director of the University Neuropsychiatric Clinic.
Reorganised and modernised the university mental hospital. Responsible for new University Neuropsychiatric Clinic (opened 1950).

1950–1960: Director of the Research Institute for Brain Pathology and Psychopathology.

1960: died 26 December

Research

Kleist studied both brain pathology and clinical Neurology and Psychiatry, which he regarded as closely allied fields. He rejected Kraepelin’s division of the functional psychoses into two divisions: dementia praecox (later renamed schizophrenia) and manic-depressive insanity, and attempted to isolate a large number of disease entities which he believed were due to focal brain lesions. This led to detailed description and analysis of neurological and psychiatric symptoms. He had many collaborators, among whom Karl Leonhard

Karl Leonhard

Karl Leonhard was a German psychiatrist, who stood in the tradition of Carl Wernicke and Karl Kleist. He created a complex classification of psychotic illnesses called nosological.His work covered Psychology, Psychotherapy, Biological psychiatry and Biological psychology...

 is notable for his genetic (at that time mainly family history) studies on groups of patients classified by Kleist. This line of work was carried on by Helmut Beckmann

Helmut Beckmann

Professor Helmut Beckmann was a German psychiatrist. He was one of the founders of neurodevelopmental theory of schizophrenia and biologically based psychiatry in Germany....

, co-founder of the International Wernicke-Kleist-Leonhard Society.

Papers

Kleist, 1911. K. Kleist , Die klinische Stellung der Motilitätspsychosen (Vortrag auf der Versammlung des Vereins bayerischer Psychiater, München, 6.-7-6-1911). Z. Gesamte Neurol. Psychiatr. Referate 3 (1911), pp. 914–977.

Kleist, 1926. K. Kleist , Über zykloide Degenerationspsychosen, besonders Verwirrtheits- und Motilitätspsychosen. Arch. Psychiatry 78 (1926), pp. 100–115.

Kleist, 1928. K. Kleist , Über zykloide, paranoide und epileptoide Psychosen und über die Frage der Degenerationspsychosen. Schweiz. Arch. Neurol. Psychiatr. 23 (1928), pp. 3–37.

Kleist, 1934. K. Kleist, Gehirnpathologie, Barth, Leipzig (1934a)

Kleist. 1934. K. Kleist, Kriegsverletzungen des Gehirns in ihrer Bedeutung für die Hirnlokalisation und Hirnpathologie, Barth, Leipzig (1934b)

Kleist, 1953. K. Kleist , Die Gliederung der neuropsychischen Erkrankungen. Monatsschr. Psychiatr. Neurol. 125 (1953), pp. 526–554.http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?doi=10.1159/000139931