Theodore Herman Weisenburg, the son of Herman and Sally (Schwartz) Weisenburg, was born on April 10, 1876 in Budapest, Austro-Hungary, and brought to the United States by his parents, who settled first in New York City and later in Bethlehem, Pa.
Education
He obtained his preliminary education in the public schools of New York and of Bethlehem, and entered the School of Technology of Lehigh University where he studied chemistry for two years. He then matriculated in the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and was graduated in 1899 with the M. D. degree.
Career
After a short interneship at the Lackawanna Hospital, Scranton, Pa. , and a longer one as a resident physician at the Philadelphia Hospital (Blockley), in Philadelphia, Pa. , he joined the United States Army in January 1901 and served in the Philippines until November 1902. He returned to Philadelphia and during the succeeding year and a half worked as a general practitioner in that city. He was registrar to the nervous wards of the Philadelphia General Hospital, 1903-04, and assistant neurologist until 1907 when he was appointed a neurologist and consultant to the department for the insane. He was instructor in neurology and neuropathology in the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania from 1904 until 1907 when he was elected professor of neurology in the Medico-Chirurgical College in Philadelphia. After this institution was absorbed by the University of Pennsylvania he was appointed professor of neurology in the Graduate School of Medicine in July 1917. In much of his work he was associated with his close friend, Charles K. Mills. He was president of the Philadelphia Neurologic Society in 1908 and of the American Neurological Association in 1918. He took a large part in making successes of the first Anglo-American Congress of Neurology held in London in 1927 and the International Neurological Congress held in Bern in 1931, and at the time of his death he was president of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases. He held membership in many professional societies. In 1926 he was made a corresponding member of the Verein für Psychiatrie und Neurologie in Vienna. During the World War Weisenburg served as contract surgeon and as an executive officer, first in the Military Neuropsychiatric Training School of the Philadelphia Hospital and later as a major in the Medical Corps; he then rose to be chief of the nervous service in General Hospital No. 1 in New York City. His subsequent work as vice dean and professor of neurology of the Graduate School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania stands out sharply. He was a contributor to neurologic and psychiatric journals, but he was bestknown as the editor-in-chief of the Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, a position he occupied from August 1920 until his death. His final task was a treatise on Aphasia, a Clinical and Psychological Study (1935), published posthumously by his collaborator, K. M. McBride. It furnished deductions as to the unified action of the brain in the formation and use of language in contrast with the extreme ideas of precise, cortical localization for the function of speech. During the period of the World War he was editor-in-chief of the Manual of Neurosurgery, issued by the Office of the Surgeon-General, Washington, D. C. He was consulting neuropsychiatrist to many hospitals in and near Philadelphia. He was buried at Valley Forge, Pa.
Achievements
Connections
On July 4, 1909, Weisenburg was married to Mrs. Constance Van der Veer Field, the daughter of Dr. G. W. and Ann (Van der Veer) Brown. She, with their daughter, survived him.