Emil kraepelin biography

German psychiatrist (–)

Emil Wilhelm Georg Magnus Kraepelin (; German:[ˈeːmiːl'kʁɛːpəliːn]; 15 February – 7 October ) was a German psychiatrist. H. J. Eysenck's Encyclopedia of Psychology identifies him as the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, psychopharmacology and psychiatric genetics.

Kraepelin believed the chief origin of psychiatric disease to be biological and genetic malfunction. His theories dominated psychiatry at the start of the 20th century and, despite the later psychodynamic influence of Sigmund Freud and his disciples, enjoyed a revival at century's end. While he proclaimed his own high clinical standards of gathering information "by means of expert analysis of individual cases", he also drew on reported observations of officials not trained in psychiatry.

His textbooks do not contain detailed case histories of individuals but mosaic-like compilations of typical statements and behaviors from patients with a specific diagnosis. He has been described as "a scientific manager" and "a political operator", who developed "a large-scale, clinically oriented, epidemiological research programme". He developed racist, psychiatric theories.

Family and early life

Kraepelin, whose father, Karl Wilhelm, was a former opera singer, music teacher, and later successful story teller, was born in in Neustrelitz, in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in Germany. He was first introduced to biology by his brother Karl, 10 years older and, later, the director of the Zoological Museum of Hamburg.

Education and career

Kraepelin began his medical studies in at the University of Leipzig and completed them at the University of Würzburg (–78). At Leipzig, he studied neuropathology under Paul Flechsig and experimental psychology with Wilhelm Wundt. Kraepelin would be a disciple of Wundt and had a lifelong interest in experimental psychology based on his theories. Whi

German psychiatrist, pioneer of 20th century somatic psychiatry.

Emil Kraepelin () was born on 15 February in Neustrelitz in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany. His father, an actor, opera singer and music teacher, frequently travelled for business and was said to have had a drinking problem. The parents separated around , and Kraepelin remained with his mother. Throughout his life, he kept close contact with his older brother, Karl, who later became a professor of botany. Kraepelin began his medical studies in After one year at Leipzig University, he transferred to Würzburg but returned to Leipzig in the spring of to study under Wilhelm Wundt, who had in the meantime become a professor there (Steinberg 79). Only shortly thereafter, Franz von Rinecker offered him an assistant position at the mental department of Würzburg’s Juliusspital. Kraepelin, still a student at that time, accepted and returned to Würzburg in July of He completed his studies there and received his doctoral degree in

Clinical experience

By around , psychiatry had been fully established as a clinical and science-based discipline. The institutional infrastructure was further expanded and, at the same time, a critical and liberal patients’ movement emerged. However, one fundamental theoretical problem still remained to be solved, as Kraepelin himself repeatedly pointed out: how to explain the so-called “functional” disorders that could not be explained by organic illness? Apart from the “unitary” concept of psychosis (Zeller, Griesinger), attributing a broad variety of symptoms to a single underlying disease process, there were explanations drawing on research in brain pathology (Meynert, Wernicke) and the theory of hereditary degeneracy (Morel, Magnan). In , the newly graduated Emil Kraepelin became a ward physician at the Upper Bavarian district asylum in Munich, then directed by Bernhard van Gudden, where he was colleagues with the psychiatrist, writer and later patient Oskar Paniz

Emil Kraepelin was a physician who studied people with mental illness in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in modern-day Germany. Kraepelin's examination and description of the symptoms and outcomes of mental illness formed the basis for his classification of psychiatric disorders into two main groups, dementia praecox, now called schizophrenia, and manic-depressive psychosis, now called bipolar disorder. He was one of the first physicians to suggest that those researching mental illness should gain scientific knowledge only through close observation and description. However, Kraepelin also believed that genetics played a role in the development and course of mental illness and characterized mentally ill people as weak-willed, which some have argued contributed to stigma about mental illnesses that persist today. Although some historians have pointed out issues with Kraepelin’s teachings, Kraepelin helped to establish psychiatry as a clinical science, which prompted future experimental investigations into mental illness.

Kraepelin was born on 15 February in Neustrelitz in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in what is now Germany. Kraepelin’s father, Karl Kraepelin, was a music teacher, actor, and opera singer who, according to historian Hannah Decker, was an alcoholic. Kraeplin remained with his mother, who he recalls with fond childhood memories in his autobiography, Memoirs, after his parents separated. Kraepelin’s brother, named Karl Kraepelin after their father, was ten years older than Kraepelin and later in life became an international authority on insects, scorpions, centipedes, and spiders. In his autobiography, Kraepelin wrote that his brother introduced him to natural sciences such as botany, the study of plants, and the theory of evolution. While Kraepelin was still in grade school, a friend of Kraepelin’s father, physician Louis Krueger, brought Kraepelin with him to observe his medical rounds in the country. Kraepelin wrote in his

Emil Kraepelin was an influential German psychiatrist who lived in the late 19 and the early 20 century. His work had a major impact on modern psychiatry and its understanding of mental illnesses based on natural scientific concepts.

Kraepelin was born in in the small town of Neustrelitz in Northern Germany. Early residencies of his life were Leipzig and Würzburg, where he studied medicine as well as Munich, where he began his career as a psychiatrist before moving on to Leipzig again. Wilhelm Wundt, a well-known psychologist, philosopher and physiologist who met Kraepelin there, became a particularly influential person in Kraepelin’s life. Kraepelin worked with enthusiasm in Wundt’s laboratory in Leipzig where his dedication to scientific research became obvious. As a result of spending most of his time in the laboratory, he lost his position as a physician because of neglect of clinical work. After this short stay in Leipzig and his qualification as a university teacher, Kraepelin worked as a visiting professor for five years in Dorpat (Estonia) and later in Heidelberg (now as a regular professor).[1] In , he moved to Munich where he founded the Department of Psychiatry of the University. It was his laboratory in which Alois Alzheimer studied the underlying causes of Alzheimer dementia. Emil Kraepelin died in in Munich after having dedicated his last years to the work on his psychiatric textbook (Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie) and the development of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Psychiatrie (German Research Institute for Psychiatry).

One of the most important achievements of Emil Kraepelin was the connection of pathogenesis and manifestation of psychiatric disorders.[2] In opposition to the leading theories of his time, Kraepelin did not believe that certain symptoms were characteristic for specific illnesses. Clinical observation led him to the hypothesis that specific combinations of symptoms in relation to the course of psychiatric illnesses a