[1] In 1867 he received his medical doctorate at the University of Berlin, where he was a student of Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) and Ludwig Traube (1818-1878).

Subsequently, he became an assistant to Ernst Viktor von Leyden (1832-1910) at the university clinic at Königsberg, and afterwards worked at the Berlin-Charité under Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal (1833-1890).

After military service in the Franco-Prussian War, he returned to Berlin as a specialist in neuropathology, and in 1882 attained the title of "professor extraordinarius".

Bernhardt published several treatises on neurological diseases and electrotherapy, and in 1885 became editor-in-chief of the Centralblatt für die Medizinischen Wissenschaften.

This condition is also referred to as meralgia paraesthetica, and is characterized by numbness or pain in the outer thigh that is caused by injury to the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve.