Constantin Alexander Economo Freiherr von San Serff was born on August 21, 1876, in Brăila, Romania.
He studied medicine medicine at the University of Vienna until 1901, specializing in neurology and psychiatry. He earned his habilitation in 1913 (associate professor 1920) and worked at the University Psychiatric Clinic of Julius Wagner-Jauregg, where he founded a brain research institute.
As a military doctor during World War I, he was the first to describe the previously unknown encephalitis lethargica (also known as “European sleeping sickness” or “von Economo’s disease”), the cause of which remains unknown to this day. In 1925 Economo and Georg Koskina published the illustrated atlas “The Cytarchitectonics of the Cerebral Cortex of the Adult Human”, which provided an important foundation for future brain research.
Since 1966, he is honored with a monument in the Arkadenhof (arcaded courtyard) of the University of Vienna.
