What is alcoholic encephalopathy

Sindrom wernicke-korsakoff
Celebrities with korsakoff syndrome
Am kozhevnikov

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Major Appointments

Physician, Preobrazhenskii Mental Hospital, Moscow, Russia.
Chair of Psychiatry, Preobrazhenskii Mental Hospital, Moscow, Russia.
Superintendent, Psychiatric Clinic, Moscow University, Moscow, Russia.

Major Honors and Awards

1890 Founded the Moscow Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists.

Landmark Clinical, Scientific, and Professional Contributions

Korsakoff is best known for his work detailing the cognitive and physical effects of chronic alcoholism. His initial contribution to this area was his 1887 doctoral thesis, which found that many alcoholics demonstrated evidence of polyneuritis (e.g., muscular weakness and pain, staggering gait) as well as profound memory impairments and confabulation. Although others (e.g., James Jackson in 1822; Robert Lawson in 1879) had previously described some of these same symptoms, Korsakoff realized the cognitive and physical symptoms were characteristic of a single disease. In fact, Korsakoff initially named the disorder ps...

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Sergei Sergeievich Korsakoff

Sergei Sergeievich Korsakoff was the first of the great Russian psychiatrist. He was born on the Gus Estate, a locality known for its glass-making factory, of which his father was the manager. He studied medicine at the University of Moscow, graduated in 1875 and subsequently became physician to Preobrazhenskii mental hospital. From 1876 to 1879 he gained postgraduate experience in the clinic for nervous diseases under Aleksei Yakolevich Kolzhevnikoff (1836-1902). His thesis Alcoholoc Paraylsis won him the medical doctorate in 1887. He was habilitated as Privatdozent in 1888 and in 1892 he was appointed superintendent of a new university psychiatric clinic and professor extraordinarius. During this time he visited Vienna where he was a pupil of Theodor Meynert. He was ordinarius of neurology and psychiatry from 1899 until his death the next year.

Korsakoff was one of the greatest psychiatrists of the 19th century and published numerous works in neuropathology, psychiatry, and forensic medicine. Apart from his studies on alcoholic psychosis he intr

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Sergey Sergeevich Korsakov was the first Professor of Psychiatry in Russia and founder of the Moscow school of psychiatry (Fig. 1). Although he was head of the psychiatric clinic of Moscow University for only 12 years, his clinical approach and organizing skills influenced the direction in which Russian psychiatry developed and put it on the international map.

Fig. 1.

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Korsakov was born in 1854 in a large village in central Russia. On finishing school––the Moscow gymnasium––at the age of 16, he enrolled in the medical faculty of Moscow University. By 1875 he was a physician at the Moscow Preobrazhenskij mental hospital and 1 year later he joined the department of nervous and mental diseases, headed by Aleksey Yakovlevich Kozhevnikov (1836–1902). Korsakov became his closest and most talented pupil.

During his professional career, Korsakov frequently travelled abroad in order to familiarize himself with the psychiatric service in Europe. His first trip was in 1885 to Vienna, where he visited Theodor Meynert. In 1889 he went to Germany, Switzerland, France