Alfred Meyer (doctor)

Alfred Meyer (born February 3, 1895 in Krefeld , † September 27, 1990 in London ) was a German-British psychiatrist and neurologist and neuropathologist.

Life and activity

After attending school, Meyer studied medicine in Bonn, Munich and Freiburg from 1913. He also received pianistic training from Clara Schumann .

From 1914 to 1918 Guttmann took part in the First World War as a field doctor , where he was mainly used in epidemic hospitals. He then completed his training in Bonn. His teachers included Nissl, Bielschowsky and Walther Spielmeyer . In 1920 he passed the medical state examination. In the same year he graduated as Dr. med.

In 1920 Meyer joined the Psychiatric and Nervous Clinic at the University of Bonn as an assistant, where he researched and taught until 1933. From 1924 to 1932 he also worked in the summer for the anatomical department of the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich, headed by his old teacher Spielmeyer . During these years he did research on anoxia and anoxic intoxication.

In 1925 Meyer completed his habilitation in Bonn, so that from then on he worked as a private lecturer (for neurology and psychiatry). In 1929 he was appointed senior physician and deputy director of the psychiatric and nervous clinic in Bonn. In 1931 he was appointed as a non-official associate professor. From 1920 to 1933 Meyer taught as a private lecturer or associate professor.

After the National Socialists came to power , Meyer was withdrawn from teaching and retired due to his Jewish descent as a "full Jew" according to the provisions of the law on the restoration of the civil service .

In 1934 Meyer emigrated to Great Britain, where he found a position at Maudsley Hospital in London. Like his colleagues Erich Guttmann and Mayer-Gross , he was able to research there first with the help of a scholarship from the Academic Assistance Council and then (from 1935) with the help of the Rockefeller Foundation. In Great Britain he worked with Denis Hill and Elisabeth Beck .

In 1949 Meyer received a chair in neuropathology at the Institute of Psychiatry at Maudsley Hospital (University of London), which he held until 1956. In the 50s a. a. Collaboration with the neurologist Sir Charles Putnam Symonds , the psychiatrist Sir Denis Hill , the New Zealand neurosurgeon Murray A. Falconer and the technical assistant and neuropathologist Elisabeth Beck with increasing preoccupation with the pathology of temporal lobe epilepsies and especially ammonium sclerosis.

Early retirement due to bilateral deafness in 1956, but further scientific activity and publications. In retirement he was Professor Emeritus Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Neuropathology of the Institute of Psychiatry at Maudsley Hospital.

Meyer wrote papers on leukotomy and temporal lobe epilepsy .

Fonts

• Incapacitation in chronic paranoia. Dissertation. 1920.
• Frederick Mott, Founder of the Maudsley Laboratories. In: British Journal of Psychiatry. Vol. 122, 1973, pp. 497-516.

literature

• Displaced German Scholars: A Guide to Academics in Peril in Nazi Germany. Borgo Press, San Bernardino 1993, ISBN 0-89370-474-1 , p. 72.
• Ralf Forsbach : The Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn in the “Third Reich”. Oldenbourg, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-486-57989-4 , pp. 354f.
• JB Cavanagh: Alfred Meyer. In: Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology. Volume 17, No. 1, February 1991, pp. 83-87.

Individual evidence

1. ^ A. Meyer, MA Falconer, E. Beck: Pathological findings in temporal lobe epilepsy. In: J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry . tape 17 , 1954, pp. 276-285 .
2. ^ MA Falconer, A. Meyer, D. Hill et al .: Treatment of temporal-lobe epilepsy by temporal lobectomy; a survey of findings and results. In: Lancet . tape 268 , 1955, pp. 827-835 .
3. ^ A. Meyer, E. Beck: The hippocampal formation in temporal lobe epilepsy. In: Proc R Soc Med . tape 48 , 1955, pp. 457-462 .