ERNST MORO (1874-1951)

"DAS ERSTE TRIMENON" was the title of a lecture given by Ernst Moro (Fig. 1) on May 7, 1918, before a meeting of the Society of Natural History and Medicine in Heidelberg; in this lecture the speaker discussed some features peculiar to the first 3 months of an infant's life.¹ At the end of it "almost as an afterthought,"² Moro described what he called "a small observation":

When a young infant is placed on the examining table and one taps with the hands on both sides of the pillow there follows a peculiar motor reflex: both arms are symmetrically extended and then approach each other again with slight shaking movements.