User:Lantzy/Christofredo Jakob

Christofredo Jakob (born Christfried Jakob; 25 December, 1866 - 6 May, 1956) was a German-born Argentine psychiatrist, neurobiologist, and philosopher, and a major figure in the neurobiological tradition known as the Argentine-German school. Since 1982 the Argentine Ministry of Health has commemorated the 17th of July - the anniversary of Jakob's arrival in his Buenos Aires laboratory - as the "Día del Investigador Neurocientífico", the Day of the Neuroscientific Investigator.

Jakob was born in the small hamlet of Wörnitzostheim, in the municipality of Alerheim in the western part of what was then the Kingdom of Bavaria. In 1899, while serving as the assistant of Adolph Strümpell at the University of Erlangen, Jakob was offered a contract by the foreign minister of Argentina to organize a neurobiological laboratory at the Hospicio de las Mercedes, today known as Hospital Borda. He was already known as the author of two anatomical atlases. In Argentina he continued his work in neurobiology, both at Hospital Borda and at Hospital Moyano, and authored works on a variety of topics, particularly philosophy. He retired in 1953 after the death of his wife. Jakob was the first titular professor of biology on the faculty of philosophy and letters at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), and at the National University of La Plata he taught courses on pathological anatomy, biology, and the nervous system. His works comprise some twenty books and 180 articles. Notable amongst these are two volumes, in German and Spanish, on the animal and human brains (1911-1913), and the monumental "Folia Neurobiológica Argentina", which gave formed the basis of a journal that is published to this day. Its seven volumes (four atlases and four textbooks published between 1939 and 1945) represent the work of nearly half a century.