Gabriel Anton

Gabriel Anton (28 July 1858 – 3 January 1933) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. He is primarily remembered for his studies of psychiatric conditions arising from damage to the cerebral cortex and the basal ganglia.

Gabriel Anton was a native of Saaz, Bohemia, and in 1882 received his doctorate at Prague. In 1887 he went to Vienna to work with Theodor Meynert (1833–1892), whom Anton regarded as a major influence to his medical career. In 1891 he moved to Innsbruck, where he was a professor of psychiatry and director of the university clinic. Later (1894) he worked at the same disciplines at Graz, and in 1905 succeeded Karl Wernicke (1848–1905) in Halle an der Saale.

Anton is remembered for his pioneer contributions to the field of neurosurgery. In collaboration with surgeons Friedrich Gustav von Bramann (1854–1913) and Viktor Schmieden (1874–1945), he proposed new procedures for treatment of hydrocephalus. This included the Balkenstich method and the suboccipital puncture.

The Anton–Babinski syndrome is named after him and Joseph Babiński (1857–1932). Anton provided a detailed description and explanation of visual anosognosia and asomatoagnosia associated with this condition. Asomatoagnosia is a rare phenomenon where a patient is in denial of a body part. Also, with Paul Ferdinand Schilder (1886–1940), Anton performed important studies of movements in patients suffering from chorea and athetosis.

Selected publications

 * Störungen im Oberflächenwachstum des menschlichen Grosshirns. Zeitschrift für Heilkunde, Prague, 1888.
 * Hydrocephalus und Gehirndruck. Medizinische Jahrbücher, Wien, 1889.
 * Über den Ausdruck der Gemütsbewegung beim gesunden und kranken Menschen. Psych Wschr, 1900; 2: 165–169. (Anton–Babinski syndrome)
 * Vier Vorträge über Entwicklungsstörungen beim Kinde. Berlin, 1908.
 * Über krankhafte moralische Abartung im Kindesalter und über den Heilwert der Affekte. with Fritz Gustav Bramann (1854–1913). Halle 1910.
 * Behandlung der angeborenen und erworbenen Gehirnkrankheiten mit Hilfe des Balkenstiches. with Fritz Gustav Bramann. Berlin 1913.