Paul Kern (insomniac)


Paul Kern was a Hungarian soldier during World War I. On June 24, 1915, he was shot in the head by a Russian soldier during an attack on the village of Chlebovice in Galicia. The bullet removed part of his frontal lobe. Rather than killing him, this made him unable to sleep.
After being shot in the head by a Russian soldier and losing part of his frontal lobe, he was taken to Lemberg Hospital. After waking up at Lemberg, he never slept again. Ernst Frey, a professor of mental and nervous diseases at the Eötvös Loránd University, treated Kern but was unable to find a cause for this abnormality.
After having been injured and leaving the army, Kern moved to Budapest. While there, he worked daily in the Pensions Department.