Alexander Crichton

Alexander Crichton (born December 2, 1763 in Edinburgh , † June 4, 1856 in Sevenoaks ) was a British doctor.

Live and act

After studying medicine in Edinburgh , where he was mainly influenced by Joseph Black , Alexander Monro and James Gregory (1753-1821), Alexander Crichton moved to London in 1784 . There he completed his practical training with William Fordyce (1724–1792), a surgeon of Scottish descent.

Years of apprenticeship and wandering followed (1785–1788) on the continent. After a month's stay in Leiden he received his doctorate there on July 29, 1785 with the thesis “De vermibus intestinorum” . In the winter of 1785/86 he stayed in Paris . He spent the summer of 1786 in Stuttgart , where he learned the German language. In the winter of 1786/87 he was in Vienna , where Maximilian Stoll represented the First Vienna Medical School and where the Narrenturm had been opened in 1784 . In the summer of 1787 he lived in Halle for three months , in the winter of 1787/88 in Berlin , and finally from March 1788 for six months in Göttingen , where Johann Friedrich Blumenbach taught.

In the autumn of 1788 Crichton returned to England . He worked in an ambulance ("dispansary") in Holborn , where he gave clinical lectures based on the model of the University of Göttingen . In 1794 he was elected physician at Westminster Hospital, where he taught courses on practical medicine, psychiatry, materia medica and chemistry . In 1800 he was one of three experts who should assess the culpability of the king assassin James Hadfield . In 1801, Crichton was appointed consultant physician at Westminster Hospital, a position he held until the end of his life.

In 1801 the Duke of Cambridge appointed Crichton as his personal physician. Emissaries of the Russian Tsar at the English court became aware of him in 1804 and they lured him to St. Petersburg . There he was personal doctor in the service of the tsar for over 15 years .

Crichton was impressed by the thinking of the German philosophers and physicians who, in the early stages of Romanticism, tried to reformulate the theoretical foundations of psychiatry by applying observation and paying attention to individual case histories. In his main work "Inquiry into the nature and origin of mental derangement" (1798), however, he developed his own approach.

He criticized the romantics' preference for the wonderful, which, in his opinion, takes up too much space in their explanations:

“Germans are almost always alike in a love for the wonderful; and it must be confessed that the psychological magazine contains an abundant and frequent supply of materials with which this weak desire can be satisfied. The stories of prophetic dreams, surprising inspirations and warnings take up too much space in this work ... "

Crichton demanded that the person who wanted to undertake a psychiatric analysis must be able, among other things, to “... separate their own mind from themselves and, in a sense, to visualize it in such a way that they can do it with frankness and impartiality of a nature writer and historian ... "

Memberships

1789 "Royal College of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland"
1791 " Royal College of Physicians "
1793 " Linnean Society of London "
1819 " Royal Geographical Society "

Orders and honors

1814 " Order of St. Vladimir " Grand Cross 2nd class by Tsar Alexander I.
1820 Grand Cross of the " Red Eagle " second class by Friedrich Wilhelm III. of Prussia
1821 ennoblement by George IV.
1830 Grand Cross of the » Order of Saint Anne « by Tsar Nicholas I.

Works (selection)

Partial translation

Under the title An Essay on Generation . Cadell, London 1792 (digitized version) translated by Crichton Johann Friedrich Blumenbach's On the Educational Instinct and the Generative Business. Dietrich, Göttingen 1781 (2nd edition 1791 (digitized) )

(Co) editor

Russian collection for natural science and healing arts. Edited by Dr. Alexander Crichton, Imperial Russian Personal Physician and General Staff Physician of the Ministry of General Police. Dr. Joseph Rehmann , Imperial Russian Personal Physician and Dr. Karl Friedrich Burdach , professor in Königsberg . Riga and Leipzig 1815 (digitized)

Own works

Of the remedies [against venereal disease] from the plant kingdom. Astragalus exscapus Linn. In: Christoph Girtanner . Treatise on venereal disease . Johann Christian Dietrich, Göttingen 1788–89. Volume I, Chapter 21, XXIII, pp. 402–414 (digitized version )

Some observations on the medicinal effects of the Icelandic moss and the fallen herb . Communicated in a letter to Dr. Simmons by Dr. Alexander Crichton . In: Samuel Foart Simmons (1750-1813) (editor). Collection of the latest observations by English doctors and surgeons for 1789 . Frankfurt am Main 1792, pp. 173-184 (digitized version )

An inquiry into the nature and origin of mental derangement. Cadell and Davies, London 1798 Volume I (digitized version) Volume II (digitized version)

Johann Christoph Hoffbauer (translator). Inquiry into the nature and origin of mind disruption, a brief system of the physiology and pathology of the human mind. August Bauer, Leipzig 1798 (2nd edition 1810 (digitized) )

An account of some experiments made with the vapor of boiling tar, in the cure of pulmonary consumption. Edinburgh 1817 (digitized version)
Presentation of some experiences about the effectiveness of tar fumes against pulmonary consumption. Plüchart, St. Petersburg and Braunschweig 1819 (digitized version )

Practical observations on the treatment and cure of several varieties of pulmonary consumption: and on the effects of the vapor of boiling tar in that disease . Lloyd, London 1823 (digitized)

Reflections on the policy of making an ample and independent provision for the roman catholic clergy of Ireland . J. Rifgway, London 1834 (digitized version )

Commentaries on some doctrines of a dangerous tendency in medecine, and on the general principles of safe practice. London 1842 (full-text digitized version)

literature

Ernst Julius Gurlt . In: Ernst Julius Gurlt and August Hirsch . Biographical lexicon of the outstanding doctors of all times and peoples. Volume II, Urban & Schwarzenberg, Vienna and Leipzig 1885, p. 105 (digitized version)
Hildegard Hopf. Life and work of Alexander Crichton (1763–1856) . Diss. Med. Munich 1962
Dora B. Weiner. Mind and Body in the Clinic: Philippe Pinel , Alexander Crichton, Dominique Esquirol , and the Birth of Psychiatry . In: GS Rousseau (editor). The languages of psyche: mind and body in Enlightment thought: Clark Library lectures 1985–1986 . University of California Press, Berkley - Los Angeles - Oxford 1990, pp. 331–402 ISBN 0-520-07044-5 (digitized version )

Individual evidence

^ Dora B. Weiner. Mind and Body in the Clinic: Philippe Pinel, Alexander Crichton, Dominique Esquirol, and the Birth of Psychiatry . In: GS Rousseau (editor). The languages of psyche: mind and body in Enlightment thought: Clark Library lectures 1985-1986 . University of California Press, Berkley - Los Angeles - Oxford 1990, p. 364.
↑ According to DB Weiner, the similarity of the "human and scientific outlook" observed by Henry Ey in Esquirol and in the German exponents of the psychics of the 19th century is due to the fact that Pinel and Esquirol on the way via Crichton by the philosophers and doctors of German early romanticism were influenced. (DB Weiner 1990, pp. 337-38)
↑ What was meant was: Karl Philipp Moritz . Experiential soul magazine. Volume 1 (1783) - 10 (1793) (digitized version)
^ Johann Christoph Hoffbauer (translator). Inquiry into the nature and origin of mind disruption, a brief system of the physiology and pathology of the human mind. August Bauer, Leipzig 1798, pp. XII-XIII (2nd edition 1810 (digitized) )
↑ The original, however, said: "The Germans are like us in a love for the wonderful ..." "The Germans almost equal ourselves in a fondness for what is wonderful ..."
↑ Alexander Crichton. An inquiry into the nature and origin of mental derangement. Cadell and Davies, London 1798 Volume I, P. VI: “The Germans almost equal ourselves in a fondness for what is wonderful; and it must be confessed, that the Psychological Magazine contains a rich and ample stock of materials with which this frail desire may be gratified. The histories of prophetic dreams, surprising inspirations and warnings, occupy too much of this work ... " (digitized version )
^ Translation of Hofbauer (1798), 1810, preface by the author, p. XV. In the original Crichton 1798, preface S. X: "... should not only be capable of abstracting his own mind from himself, and placing it before him, as it were, so as to examine it with the freedom, and with the impartiality of a natural historian ... "

Web links

'Mind in general' by Sir Alexander Crichton with an introduction by GE Berrios. History of Psychiatry, 17 (4): 469-497

personal data
SURNAME	Crichton, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British medic
DATE OF BIRTH	December 2, 1763
PLACE OF BIRTH	Edinburgh
DATE OF DEATH	June 4, 1856
Place of death	Sevenoaks

[1] Dora B. Weiner. Mind and Body in the Clinic: Philippe Pinel, Alexander Crichton, Dominique Esquirol, and the Birth of Psychiatry . In: GS Rousseau (editor). The languages of psyche: mind and body in Enlightment thought: Clark Library lectures 1985-1986 . University of California Press, Berkley - Los Angeles - Oxford 1990, p. 364.

[2] According to DB Weiner, the similarity of the "human and scientific outlook" observed by Henry Ey in Esquirol and in the German exponents of the psychics of the 19th century is due to the fact that Pinel and Esquirol on the way via Crichton by the philosophers and doctors of German early romanticism were influenced. (DB Weiner 1990, pp. 337-38)

[3] What was meant was: Karl Philipp Moritz . Experiential soul magazine. Volume 1 (1783) - 10 (1793) (digitized version)

[4] Johann Christoph Hoffbauer (translator). Inquiry into the nature and origin of mind disruption, a brief system of the physiology and pathology of the human mind. August Bauer, Leipzig 1798, pp. XII-XIII (2nd edition 1810 (digitized) )

[5] The original, however, said: "The Germans are like us in a love for the wonderful ..." "The Germans almost equal ourselves in a fondness for what is wonderful ..."

[6] Alexander Crichton. An inquiry into the nature and origin of mental derangement. Cadell and Davies, London 1798 Volume I, P. VI: “The Germans almost equal ourselves in a fondness for what is wonderful; and it must be confessed, that the Psychological Magazine contains a rich and ample stock of materials with which this frail desire may be gratified. The histories of prophetic dreams, surprising inspirations and warnings, occupy too much of this work ... " (digitized version )

[7] Translation of Hofbauer (1798), 1810, preface by the author, p. XV. In the original Crichton 1798, preface S. X: "... should not only be capable of abstracting his own mind from himself, and placing it before him, as it were, so as to examine it with the freedom, and with the impartiality of a natural historian ... "