Arnold Wienholt (medical doctor)

Arnold Wienholt

Arnold Wienholt (born August 18, 1749 in Bremen ; † September 1, 1804 in Bremen) was a doctor in Bremen.

biography

The son of a wealthy businessman, described by his biographers as inquisitive and hardworking, studied in Göttingen from 1771 , received his doctorate there in 1772 and gained practical experience as a doctor in Vienna before he returned to Bremen via Berlin and opened his own practice here in 1773. He continued to cultivate his scientific interests and founded the Physikalisches Kabinett with like-minded people in 1774 , which later became the Museum Society . In 1777 he became Stadtphysicus as the successor to Christian Adam Gondela (1726–1777), the highest health officer in Bremen, and published an improved pharmacy order and a report on the plague of 1712/13 . On April 14, 1780 he married Johanne Misler from Hamburg, with whom he had five children, including the businessman and senator Johann Gottfried Wienholt (1783–1835) and Dr. Daniel Wienholt who died in Berlin in 1817 at the age of 26.

In 1786 Johann Caspar Lavater visited Bremen and enthused Wienholt for "animal magnetism" , a treatment method related to hypnosis , the success of which is now attributed to placebo effects . In any case, Wienholt initially treated "some young women suffering from severe convulsive nerve accidents" so effectively that the doctor and astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers kept further medical records with him and was also able to convince other leading doctors in Bremen, Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus and Johann Heineken of his healing powers. In 1802 Wienholt published his main work The Healing Power of Animal Magnetism in two volumes based on his own experience based on 50 medical histories.

After his death in 1804, his widow impressively described the character, religiosity and social behavior of the man in Arnold Wienholt's Educational History as a Man, Doctor and Christian , who, even if his teachings are long out of date, must be counted among the Enlightenmentists in Bremen.

literature

• Henrich Nicolaus Achelis (ed.): Arnold Wienholt's history of education as a person, doctor and Christian , Bremen 1805.
• Heinrich Wilhelm Rotermund: Lexicon of all scholars who have lived in Bremen since the Reformation , Bremen 1818, vol. 2, p. 254 f. (with Wienholt's list of publications) Digitized
• Arnold Wienholt: History of the Museum in Bremen . In: Hanseatisches Magazin 1799, p. 177 ff.
• J. Wichelhausen: Arnold Wienholt . In: Biographical sketches of deceased Bremen naturalists and doctors , Bremen 1844, pp. 163–180. (Digitized version)
• Tilman Hannemann: The Bremen magnetizers. A dream of enlightenment . Kleio Humanities, Bremen 2007, ISBN 978-3-9811211-2-4
• Wilhelm Olbers Focke:  Wienholt, Arnold . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, p. 422.