Friedrich Schultze

Who was Friedrich Schultze?

Friedrich Schultze was a German neurologist who was a native of Rathenow, Brandenburg. He is known for being the founder of child neurology.

In 1871 he earned his doctorate at Heidelberg, and afterwards spent several years as an assistant to pathologist Nikolaus Friedreich. In 1887 he was invited as a "full professor" to the University of Dorpat, and shortly afterwards became director of the medical clinic and policlinic at the University of Bonn, where he spent the remainder of his career.

Schultze is remembered for his numerous medical publications involving neuroanatomical and neuropathological investigations that he performed. In 1884 he was credited with being the first physician to describe a neurological disorder that later became known as Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. He also provided an early description of acroparesthesia. In 1891 with Wilhelm Heinrich Erb and Adolph Strümpell, he founded the journal Deutsche Zeitschrift für Nervenheilkunde.

His name is lent to the eponymous "comma tract of Schultze", a compact bundle of posterior root fibers situated near the border between the fasciculus gracilis and cuneate fasciculus of the spinal cord.