Romberg, Moritz Heinrich:

By: Isidore Singer , Frederick T. Haneman

German physician; born at Meiningen, Saxony, Nov. 11, 1795; died in Berlin June 16, 1873. He graduated as doctor of medicine from the University of Berlin in 1817, and after a short stay in Vienna settled in the German capital in the following year. In 1820 he was appointed physician to the poor, and in 1830 was admitted to the university as privat-docent in medicine, lecturing on special pathology and therapeutics. During the cholera epidemics of 1831 and 1837 he was in charge of one of the hospitals in Berlin. The subjects of his lectures included, after 1834, examinations of the heart and lungs. In 1838 he became assistant professor, and in 1840 took charge of the university dispensary. In 1845 he was elected professor, and resigned his position as physician to the poor. In 1851 he received the title "Geheime Medizinalrath"; and in 1867, after celebrating his jubilee as doctor, he retired into private life.

Romberg published many essays, especially in Caspar's "Wochenschrift" (of which journal he was one of the editors from 1833), in Rust's "Handbuch der Chirurgie," in Schmidt's "Jahrbuch für Praktische Medizin," in Horn's "Archiv," etc.

He was the translator of Bell's work on physiology under the title "Physiologische und Pathologische Untersuchungen des Nervensystems," Berlin, 1832 (2d ed., ib. 1836), and author of "Lehrbuch der Nervenkrankheiten," ib. 1840-46 (3d ed. 1853-55; of the 4th edition only vol. i. was published, in 1857). In 1820 he translated Marshal's "The Morbid Anatomy of the Brain," and in 1828 Albertini's "Opuscula."

Romberg's specialty was neuropathy. In this field he did much to advance the knowledge of diseases and their treatment. His "Lehrbuch der Nervenkrankheiten" gave for the first time a systematic review of nervous maladies.