Ernst Sträussler

Ernst Sträussler (June 17, 1872, Ungarisch-Hradisch - July 11, 1959, Vienna) was an Austrian neuropathologist who was a native of the Moravian city of Ungarisch-Hradisch.

In 1895 he earned his medical doctorate at the University of Vienna, and afterwards worked at the psychiatric clinic of Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1857 - 1940). In 1907 he was habiliated for psychiatry and neurology in Prague, where in 1915 he attained the title of professor extraordinary. In 1919 he returned to Vienna.

Sträussler is remembered for his work in forensic psychiatry, as well as his research involving the histopathology of the central nervous system. With neurologist Georg Koskinas (1885-1975) he performed important studies involving malaria therapy as a type of physical treatment for dementia paralytica.

In 1936 with neurologists Josef Gerstmann (1887 - 1969) and Ilya Scheinker (1902 - 1954), he described a rare prion disease that is a familial form of progressive dementia. Today this condition is known as Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome (GSS).