The scientific work of Walther Birkmayer is grounded on his ability to
turn what was often a mass of clinical details into the basis for a
hypothesis for a new therapeutic approach toward solving the problems of
a patient's illness. Birkmayer first became known when, during the
Second World War, he built up a clinic for brain injuries in Vienna, in
which over 3000 patients were treated. The study of changes in the
autonomic functions of the nervous system in these patients as well as
the problems of rehabilitation were published in a monograph, "Hirn-
verletzungen". Consequently, this was his major scientific interest
during the post-war years. His book, "Klinik und Therapie der
vegetativen Funktionsstorungen" published with W. Winkler, brought
Birkmayer recognition in the German-speaking world. In 1954 he took over
the Neurological Department of the Geriatric Hospital of Vienna in
Lainz, where he remained until his retirement in 1975. International
acclaim followed his breakthrough with the clinical application of
L-DOPA in Parkinson's disease. Birkmayer, as a strong adherent to the
scientific interpretation of neurological and psychiatric disease, has
encouraged multidisciplinary research. This is reflected in his
establishment of the former Ludwig Boltzmann- Institute of
Neurochemistry, in which pharmacological, biochemical and
histopathological research into neuropsychiatric diseases was performed
under one roof. Further to his initial work on L-DOPA, Birkmayer has
been in the forefront of supplementary parkinsonian therapy using enzyme
inhibitors: benserazide in 1967, unselective monoamine oxidase
inhibitors in 1962 and deprenyl in 1975.
