Ernst Trömner: beyond the reflex hammer

Abstract

Ernst Trömner (1868–1930) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist at the St. Georg Hospital in Hamburg. As clinician and researcher, he contributed to our understanding of various fields within neurology including language and speech disorders, hypnosis and suggestion, sleep physiology and diseases, leukemia with nervous system involvement, gait disorders, metabolic myelopathy, Parkinson’s disease, organic psychosis, and schizophrenia. However, his main interest was muscle reflexes. De facto, Trömner described a variant of the Achilles tendon reflex, a modification of the Oppenheim’s and Babinski’s reflexes, “rediscovered” the corneomandibular reflex and described the joint reflexes of the lower extremities as well as a muscle stretch reflex of the diaphragm. Moreover, Trömner has developed the first sedimentation chamber to assess the cerebrospinal fluid as well as the muscle plessimeter and, probably most considerable, the reflex hammer which is widely used by neurologists around the globe to date and is commonly referred to as the “Trömner hammer.” His name has also become inextricably linked with the finger flexor reflex, which is commonly known as the “Trömner reflex.” This article briefly summarizes Professor Ernst Trömner’s life and his contributions to clinical neurology and psychiatry beyond his most famous eponyms, the hammer and the finger flexor reflex.