The reflex hammer. In memoriam Robert Wartenberg (1887-1956).

'WITH every tap a peculiar itching or tickling sensation may be perceived in the tendon'. So was the feeling described, ninety years ago, in the first account of the hammer as applied to the patellar tendon.' For the well equipped physician had been carrying in his bag some variant of our red rubber triangle mounted on a stainless steel handle quite some time before the words just quoted appeared in Westphal's Archiv far Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten. Their author was Wilhelm Erb, who wrote in 1875