Achim Thom

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Achim Thom (born August 14, 1935 in Marienburg , Pomerania; † September 19, 2010 in Schwarz (Mecklenburg) ) was a German medical historian and philosopher.

Life

Thom grew up in Marienburg and Graudenz , and after being expelled in 1945 in Gernrode , Harz. He studied philosophy with a minor in psychology at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig . He was married to the philosopher Martina Thom and had three children. In 1965 he received his doctorate at the Institute for Marxism-Leninism. He then worked in the medicine teaching group and as a lecturer . 1971 followed a doctorate to Dr. sc. phil. In 1973 Thom was appointed professor . In 1977 he was reappointed professor for the history of medicine at the Leipzig Karl Sudhoff Institute for the history of medicine and the natural sciences , of which he became director in 1982.

In the 1980s, Achim Thom u. a. Member of the Medical Advisory Board at the Ministry of Higher Education and Technical Education of the GDR, member of the National Committee for the History and Philosophy of Science at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and member of the Scientific Council for Peace Research at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. In 1996 he ended his work as director of the Karl Sudhoff Institute and retired in 2000.

As a medical historian with a philosophical background, Achim Thom worked on opening up narrow ideological paradigms, e. B. was the first to publish works by Sigmund Freud in the GDR in 1984. In close cooperation with the psychiatrist Klaus Weise, Leipzig, and with representatives of reform-oriented psychiatry in the Federal Republic such as Erich Wulff and Klaus Dörner , Achim Thom was involved in reforming and modernizing psychiatry in the GDR.

One topic of his work was the ethical problems of the medical profession, but also general socio-political and ethical-moral problems, such as dealing with the terminally ill in the GDR. Another area of ​​his research concerned the analysis of changes in theoretical concepts in medicine since the beginning of the 19th century and in particular the position of psychotherapy in medicine. As a medical historian, he devoted himself to the history of the medical faculty at the University of Leipzig in the 19th and 20th centuries and, since the 1980s, increasingly to the history of medicine and medical practice during the National Socialist period. His research on the history of psychiatry and euthanasia in the Third Reich was related to this . a. in cooperation and a. with the Munich Institute for Contemporary History and the Military History Research Office in Freiburg.

Achim Thom was co-author of the medical dictionary edited by Wolfgang U. Eckart and Christoph Gradmann , the third edition of which appeared in 2006.

Fonts (selection)

  • as ed. with Bernhard Schwarz and Klaus Weise: Social psychiatry in socialist society. Georg Thieme, Leipzig 1971.
  • with Klaus Weise: Medicine and Weltanschauung. Urania-Verlag, Leipzig / Jena / Berlin 1973. Digitized 2019
  • with Susanne Hahn: Meaningful preservation of life - humane dying: Positions on the discussion about d. medical mandate to preserve human life. German Science Publishers, Berlin 1983.
  • as publisher: Medicine in Fascism: Protocol / Symposium on d. Fate d. Medicine in d. Time d. Fascism in Germany 1933 - 1945. Akad. Für Ärztl. Further training of the GDR, Berlin 1983.
  • as editor: On the history of psychiatry in the 19th century. Verlag Volk und Gesundheit, Berlin 1984.
  • as editor: Sigmund Freud: Psychoanalysis. Reclam-Verlag, Leipzig 1984, ISBN 3-379-00535-5 .
  • as ed. with Genadij Ivanovič Caregorodcev: Medicine under the swastika. Verlag Volk und Gesundheit, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-333-00400-3 .
  • as ed. with Erich Wulff: Psychiatrie im Wandel: Experiences and perspectives in East and West. Psychiatrie Verlag, Bonn 1990, ISBN 3-88414-100-7 .
  • Psychiatric war victims. The example of the sanatoriums and nursing homes in Saxony. In: Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): Medicine and health policy in the Nazi era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history. Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 201–216.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfgang U. Eckart, Christoph Gradmann: Doctors Lexicon. From antiquity to the present. 3. Edition. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-540-29584-6 (print), ISBN 978-3-540-29585-3 (online).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Thom, Achim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German medical historian, philosopher and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Marienburg
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 2010
Place of death Black (Mecklenburg)