Medical Dictionary

Wernicke's aphasia

noun Wer·nicke's aphasia \ ˈver-nə-kəz- , -kēz- \

medical Definition of Wernicke's aphasia

: sensory aphasia; specifically : sensory aphasia in which the affected individual speaks words fluently but without meaningful content

Biographical Note for wernicke's aphasia

Wernicke \ˈver-nə-kə\, Carl (1848–1905), German neurologist. Wernicke is important for his work in relating nerve diseases to specific areas of the brain. The last two decades of his life were spent as professor of neurology and psychiatry first at Breslau and then at Halle, Germany. Wernicke belonged to a 19th-century school of German neuropsychiatry that made no distinction between disorders of the mind and disorders of the brain. He is best known for his studies of aphasia.