Heinrich Schüle

Heinrich Schüle

Heinrich Schüle (* 24. August 1840 in Freiburg ; † 9. December 1916 in Achern ) was a German psychiatrist and longtime director of the mental hospital Illenau . He is considered a pioneer of institutional psychiatry in Baden and, alongside Richard von Krafft-Ebing, the last important representative of the “Illenau School” of institutional psychiatry .

Life

Schüle studied medicine in Freiburg and Vienna . He worked for two years as an assistant to the gynecologist Otto Spiegelberg and became friends with Adolf Kussmaul . After the state examination in 1863 he became an assistant doctor in Illenau with Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Roller and his deputy Karl Hergt . Here he worked with Jean Paul Hasse , Ludwig Kirn (1839–1899) and Bernhard von Gudden , and above all a lifelong friendship with Richard von Krafft-Ebing . He received his doctorate in Freiburg in 1873 and in the same year drafted the plans to build the psychiatric clinic in Heidelberg . He also advised the Baden state government on the other new institutions in Baden in Freiburg, Emmendingen , Wiesloch and Konstanz .

In the course of his career, Schüle received various positions at other universities and institutions, including the University of Zurich , the Philipps University of Marburg and the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg , all of which he turned down in order to continue working as a prison doctor in Illenau. In Illenau he was initially the head doctor of the healing department. Under the director Karl Hergt he worked as a second doctor and his deputy. After Hergt's death, he became director on January 11, 1890. Schüle organized a comprehensive reconstruction of the institution, which was expanded from 440 to 700 places and received histological, psychophysical and serological laboratories. With a growing scientific reputation, he was called to consultations at home and abroad, while prominent patients were also treated in Illenau. He also appeared as an expert witness in many trials, for example in the sensational case of Paul Hegelmaier .

From 1879 Schüle was co-editor of the Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie and from 1884 member of the board of the Association of German Insane Doctors. In 1878 he became a medical councilor , in 1880 a secret councilor , and in 1892 privy councilor III. Class and in 1899 2nd class appointed.

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Handbook of Mental Illnesses (1878)

Schüle published a number of journal articles and monographs. He first worked on delirium acutum and paralysis . He carried out histological examinations on the brains of mentally ill people and later dealt particularly with the question of the hereditary nature of mental illnesses. His handbook on the special pathology and therapy of mental illnesses , first published in 1878, became particularly well-known , in which he differentiated psychoses with organo-psychic formation of symptoms ( psychoneuroses ) from psychoses based on defective organo-psychic disposition ( degenerative brain life ). This made him one of the world's most famous clinicians of his time.

In his approach, Schüle already placed particular emphasis on the problem of heredity, which he understood in terms of the theory of degeneration .

"Mental illnesses are brain diseases, but they are more than that. As the peculiarity of the psychiatric discipline, the psychological phenomena claim their special and thorough appreciation, not only for themselves, but in constant (even if only elementary) reference to the changes in the state of the respective physical brain affection. In addition to this analysis, however, the synthesis must always be observed: the apprehension of the individual not only as a mentally ill person, but as a separate spiritual person.
This gives anthropology its fair consideration. Because the individual is not an isolated phenomenon, but rather derives the conditions of his psychic basis from his ascendency, the heredity results for all deepening inferences from the psychological symptom to the neurotic basis can only be carried out if these are taken into account. We must not grasp the insane individual for himself, but only in the chain of his descent. "

- Heinrich Schüle : Handbook of mental illnesses

Karl Jaspers , however, counted him among the “porters”, not the “analysts” among psychiatrists.

“Schüle writes with a certain pathos, the pathos of education and the pathos of the healing personality of the doctor. His pictorial language is interspersed with philosophical remarks. He loves chosen foreign words, and he likes to translate his opinions into complicated conceptual symbols. On the basis of an extraordinary experience in daily intercourse with the sick, he gives a description of symptomatological illnesses that is lovingly immersed in details, not only sets up types, but a wealth of nuances, variations, and transitions. "

- Karl Jaspers : General Psychopathology

Fonts

• The neuralgic dysphrenia. A clinical treatise. Edited by Heinrich Schuele after observations on female patients. Chr. Fr. Müller, Carlsruhe 1867.
• Section results in the mentally ill, along with medical histories and epicrises. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1874.
• Contributions to the knowledge of paralysis. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the service of ... Dr. Hergt. Reimer, Berlin around 1875.
• Handbook of Mental Illnesses. (= (Ziemssens Handbook of Special Pathology and Therapy, Volume 16) Vogel, Leipzig 1st edition 1878 , 2nd edition 1880 , 3rd fully revised edition 1886 under the title Clinical Psychiatry: Special Pathology and Therapy of Mental Diseases ).
• Festschrift to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Illenau institution. Winter, Heidelberg 1892.
• Yearbooks for Psychiatry and Neurology. Festschrift Mr. Hofrath Professor Dr. Richard Freiherrn von Krafft-Ebing in celebration ...... Statistical results from 100 cases of progressive paralysis. Collected in the Illenau asylum, Heinrich Schüle, S 18 - 34, Franz Deuticke, Leipzig and Vienna 1902.
• On the question of marrying the previously insane. Hirzel; Reimer, Leipzig, Berlin 1904.
• Lecture given at the annual meeting of German psychiatrists in Göttingen on April 26, 1904. Hirzel, Leipzig 1904.
• (Insanity and Marriage). Creation of statistical tables on heredity; clinical and biological questions; genealogical trees of 20 cyclical mental patients (with table); Prophylaxis suggestions; Extended lecture for the meeting of German insane doctors in Dresden on April 28, 1905. Reimer, Berlin 1905.

literature

• Max Fischer: Heinrich Schüle (1840–1916). In: Theodor Kirchhoff (Ed.): Deutsche Irrenärzte. Volume 1. Berlin 1924, p. 184 ff.
• Franz Kohl: Heinrich Schüle (1840–1916) - psychiatric researcher, textbook author and pioneer of institutional psychiatry in Baden. In: Gerhardt Nissen , Frank Badura (ed.): Series of publications of the German Society for the History of Neurology. Volume 7, Würzburg 2001, pp. 103-114.

Web links

• Illenau Arkaden Museum

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Heinrich Schüle: Handbook of mental illnesses . Leipzig 1878, p. 3f.
2. ↑ Karl Jaspers: General Psychopathology . 3rd edition, Berlin 1923, p. 445