Wartenbergwiel

What is a wartenbergwiel?

A wartenbergwiel (English: Wartenberg wheel) is a small wheel with evenly spaced sharp points on a handle, which you roll across the skin. It is the Dutch name for the pinwheel, and that page carries the measurements, the sensation, and the reason the skin stays intact as long as you do not press.

Who Robert Wartenberg was

A neurologist who was pushed out of his own field and kept his name on a small wheel.

Wartenberg appears in the history of German neurology in the list of scientists marked as Jewish who were driven from their profession after 1933 and emigrated, alongside names like Kurt Goldstein and Ludwig Guttmann. The authors themselves call that list “a who’s who of Central European neurology.”

His article on the wheel appeared afterward in an American journal. In JAMA of 16 October 1937 he wrote that he had not devised the instrument, that it had long been in use in Europe, and that he considered it “an indispensable part of the outfit for everyday neurologic practice.” He recommended it to his American colleagues, and it has carried his name ever since. The full citation for that letter is on pinwheel.

Why Dutch has no other word

Because the word came in here through the web shop and not through the consulting room.

The Dutch newspaper archive gives zero articles for wartenbergwiel. German has its own word for it, Wartenbergrad, with its own encyclopedia entry; Dutch has only the loan translation you find on packaging. So anyone writing about this object in Dutch is writing a word that has never appeared in a newspaper.

The wheel itself, meanwhile, turns up in more places than you would think. The encyclopedia entry notes that pattern makers use a nearly identical wheel, the pounce wheel, with a wooden or plastic handle, to transfer markings from paper to fabric. The same principle, a different trade.

Where this fits on my site

This wheel is in my kit, and whether it comes out is an agreement and not a surprise. How an evening like that is put together is on the page about the BDSM date. If you first want to know how it feels, that is a question you can simply ask.

Sources

• Historical review. A short history of German neurology, from its origins to the 1940s. Karenberg, Fangerau, Steinmetz, Berlit & Grond, Neurological Research and Practice 1, article 14, 2019 (DOI 10.1186/s42466-019-0019-z; full text read via PMC7650065). Provides that Robert Wartenberg appears in the list of neuroscientists marked as Jewish or non-Aryan for whom expulsion from their profession began after 1933, and that the authors describe that émigré list as a who’s who of Central European neurology, including Josef Gerstmann, Kurt Goldstein, Ludwig Guttmann, Friedrich Heinrich Lewy and Adolf Wallenberg.
• Wartenberg wheel. Wikipedia. Used here only for descriptive details and for the quotations from Wartenberg’s letter. Provides the alternative names Wartenberg pinwheel and Wartenberg neurowheel, the point that Wartenberg is wrongly named as the inventor while he himself wrote that the device was already widespread in Europe when he lived in Germany, his description of the wheel as “an indispensable part of the outfit for everyday neurologic practice” and his recommendation of it to American colleagues, and the fact that pattern makers use a comparable wheel with a wooden or plastic handle under the name pounce wheel.
• Newspaper archive of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Delpher). Queried through the SRU service, collection DDD_artikel. Provides the negative finding: zero articles with wartenbergwiel, against 3,475 with the bare surname Wartenberg, which are about other people and places.

Related terms

A wartenbergwiel is the Dutch name for the pinwheel, and that page carries the technique, the hygiene, and the point at which the skin opens.

• Pinwheel. The same object under its English name, with the Merkel cells, the measurements, and the disposable version.
• Sensation play. The family this tool is for, where the aim is to stimulate without damaging.
• Medical play. The setting this instrument literally comes from.
• Inspection. The examination ritual a wartenbergwiel most often joins.
• Neon wand. The device this wheel is sometimes attached to for an electrical version.