German
neurologist and psychiatrist. He is known for his study of aphasia. In The
Aphasic Syndrome 1874, he described what later became known as sensory aphasia
(that is, defects in, or loss of, speech and expression) as distinct from
motor aphasia, first described by French surgeon Paul Pierre Broca (1824-1880).
Although both forms of aphasia result from brain damage, Wernicke found
that the locus of the damage differed, sensory aphasia being induced by
lesions to the left temporal lobe, motor aphasia by lesions to the left
posterior frontal lobe. He used the differential clinical features of the
two aphasias to formulate a general theory of the neural bases of language.
Wernicke also described a form of encephalopathy induced by thiamine deficiency
which bears his name. |