Alexander Carl Otto Westphal

Who was Alexander Carl Otto Westphal?

Alexander Carl Otto Westphal was a German neurologist and psychiatrist. He was the son of the psychiatrist Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal and Clara Mendelssohn and the grandson of Otto Carl Friedrich Westphal.

Alexander Westphal studied at Heidelberg and Berlin, receiving his doctorate at Berlin in 1888. He then became an assistant to Wilhelm Heinrich Erb in Heidelberg and to Heinrich Curschmann in Leipzig. In 1892 he became the head physician of the department for nervous diseases at the Berlin Charité under Friedrich Jolly, subsequently qualifying in the fields psychiatry and neurology. In 1902 he accepted an invitation to the University of Greifswald as an associate professor, and two years later relocated to the University of Bonn as full professor.

Westphal made contributions towards the literature involving diabetes insipidus, leukaemia and pseudoleukaemia, as well as a variety of topics in psychiatry and neurology. He is eponymously associated with the "Westphal-Pilcz sign", a medical indicator named in conjunction with Polish neurologist Jan Pilcz.