ROMBERG, MORITZ HEINRICH

ROMBERG, MORITZ HEINRICH (1795–1873), German neurologist, born in Meiningen. He made fundamental contributions in the field of neuropathology. His Lehrbuch der Nervenkrankheiten des Menschen (1846) is considered to be the first systematic textbook in the field of neurology (English translation, A Manual of the Nervous Diseases of Man, 2 vols., 1853). He discovered a pathognomonic sign of locomotor ataxia: the inability of ataxics to stand firm or reach the destination of the intended movement when their eyes are closed (Rombergism). He described facial hemiatrophy or trophoneurosis called "Romberg's disease," and a complex of symptoms caused by dilatation of blood vessels in the splanchnic area. He was the first to describe ciliary neuralgia. In 1838 he became associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Berlin. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S.R. Kagan, Jewish Medicine (1952), 373. (Suessmann Muntner)