Otfrid Foerster - Recognition

Recognition

Thus, Foerster's prominent position in the neurology of Germany was recognized in 1924. His prominence was at the same level of Max Nonne (1861-1959) and Foerster succeeded him as the president of the German Society of Neurology for eight years until 1932. From 1925 to 1935 Foerster brought all available analytic methods into his research, such as electrophysiology, which measures or induces electrical voltage among tissues, such as the brain. Fundamental work was developed about the electrical phenomena occurring in the reflex disturbances in the pyramidal system syndromes, such as lesions in the pallidum lesions etc. With the help of donations from the Rockefeller Foundation and the support of the State of Prussia, Foerster was able to open a new Institute of Neurological Research in 1934, which was later renamed after him (University of Breslau's Otfrid Foerster Institut Für Neurologie). Otfrid Foerster was, together with Oswald Bumke, co-editor of a monumental textbook of neurology, in which he wrote several chapters.

He received in 1935 the John Hughlings Jackson Memorial Medal on his 100th birthday. In 1936 he blended physiology, neurology and neurosurgery to create a world famous cytoarchitecture map of the human cerebral cortex.

Described by his biographers as a giant of neurosurgery, a man of towering intelligence, kindness and charm, he commanded several languages fluently and was a prolific lecturer and writer, having published more than 300 papers and several books. His name has been honoured by the German Society of Neurosurgery by the Otfrid-Foerster-Medaille und -Gedächtnisvorlesung (Otfrid Foerster Medal and Memorial Lecture), created on August 26, 1953.