Franz Richarz (psychiatrist)

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Franz Richarz, grave medallion by Albert Küppers in the old cemetery in Bonn

Franz R. Richarz (born January 5, 1812 in Linz am Rhein ; † January 26, 1887 in Endenich ) was a German psychiatrist and head of his own private insane asylum. Today he is best known as the doctor in charge of the composer Robert Schumann , who died mentally deranged in Richarz's asylum . Other greats that could be treated in Endenich were the painters Carl Gehrts , Mihály von Munkácsy and Alfred Rethel .

Live and act

The Richarz'sche private insane asylum in the 19th century
The building of the Richarz'sche private insane asylum in Bonn-Endenich, today the Schumannhaus (2009)

Richarz was born the son of a merchant and ship owner. He studied medicine in Bonn from 1830 , including with Christian Friedrich Nasse . Here he became a member of the Corps Rhenania in 1830 . After receiving his doctorate in 1834 with a thesis on recognizing insanity and curing it, he became an assistant to Maximilian Jacobi in the Siegburg insane asylum in 1836 . In 1844 the ambitious Richarz published a reform paper on public care for the insane and the need to improve it , in which he spoke out in favor of smaller institutions in every administrative district of the Rhine province . In the same year he founded his own private institution in Bonn-Endenich. In 1858 he turned down a call to Siegburg to succeed Jacobi, but in 1863 he took over the management of the institution on a temporary basis for a few months. As early as 1859, he had gradually passed the management of his own institution to his nephew Bernhard Oebeke . Hearing impairment and dealing with many people increasingly bothered him. He became grumpy and irritable. Until 1872 he remained a consulting doctor at his institution. He was a member of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors . In 1867, Richarz founded the psychiatric association of the Rhine Province together with Karl Friedrich Werner Nasse .

Richarz advocated a somatic conception of mental illness , according to which these were based on idiopathic changes in the brain . He later wrote some of the earliest papers on the inheritance of mental illness.

The Schumann House in Bonn is now housed in the building of the Richarz private institution .

Fonts

  • De vesaniae cognitione et cura quaedam. Schloesser, Cologne 1834 (also medical dissertation, Bonn 1834) - digitized version: Bavarian State Library .
  • On public care for the insane and the need to improve it, with special consideration for the Rhine Province , Bonn 1844
  • (with Friedrich Wilhelm Böcker and Carl Reiner Hertz ) Reiner Stockhausen. An act-like contribution to psychological-judicial medicine for doctors and lawyers, with expert opinion from Dr. M. Jacobi , Royal. Ober-Medicinalrathe and Director of the Provincial Insane Asylum in Siegburg, and the editors , Elberfeld 1855 ( digitized version )
  • About procreation and inheritance. Reply to the "Contributions to the question of heredity by Emanuel Roth" ... , Bonn 1880

literature

  • Oebeke: Nekrolog , in: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie , Vol. 43 (1887), pp. 557ff.
  • Bandorf:  Richarz, Franz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 28, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, p. 423 f.
  • Bernhard R. Appel , Robert Schumann in Endenich (1854–1856): medical records, letters and contemporary reports , Mainz: Schott, 2006, ISBN 3-7957-0527-4
  • Salina Braun: "As for the main cause of his mental illness, ... self-defilement". Disease attributions and treatment practices in the Irren-Heil-Anstalt Siegburg (1825–1878). The fall of Georg v. G. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 25, 2006, pp. 43-61, here: pp. 48-55.
  • Salina Braun, healing with defect. Psychiatric practice at the institutions Hofheim and Siegburg 1820–1878 , Göttingen 2009
  • John Worthen, Robert Schumann. Life and death of a musician. New Haven: Yale University Press 2007, ISBN 978-0-300-11160-6

Web links

Commons : Franz Richarz (psychiatrist)  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richarz, Franz. In: Matrikel der Bonner Rhenanen 1820–2003 (= Blaubücher der Bonner Rhenania , Vol. 6), p. 39
  2. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1910, 26, 94
  3. ↑ Members of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors 1857
personal data
SURNAME Richarz, Franz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Richarz, Franz R.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychiatrist
DATE OF BIRTH January 5, 1812
PLACE OF BIRTH Linz on the Rhine
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1887
Place of death Endeich