Hermann Engelken

Johann Ludwig Hermann Engelken (also: Engelken III) , (born February 20, 1844 in Oberneuland near Bremen, † May 2, 1919 in Bremen ) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist .

biography

Engelken (often referred to as Hermann Engelken III) was the son of the psychiatrist Johann Ludwig Hermann Engelken II (1807-1881) and the grandson of the psychiatrist Hermann Engelken I (1771-1841). After graduating from high school in Bremen, he began studying medicine in Göttingen in the summer semester of 1863 and became a member of the Hannovera fraternity . He completed his studies in Zurich in 1867 with a doctorate as Dr. med. and then passed the medical state examination. He joined the private sanatorium and nursing home for the nervous and mentally ill Blockdiek in Rockwinkel in the Oberneuland parish belonging to Bremen as a co-owner.

Engelken was the youngest and last member of a family of psychiatrists who worked on the outskirts of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen for four generations and, in contrast to conventional medicine at the time, developed very successfully new types of treatment and care methods for mental illnesses. It all started with Friedrich Engelken I (1744–1815), Hermann Engelken III's great-grandfather. He came from a poor farming family from Oberneuland and entered the service of the Dutch East India Company at the age of fourteen. There he was trained as a "surgeon". In the hospitals on Java he learned how to treat the sick with opium. After returning to Germany, he settled as a surgeon in Oberneuland and came into conflict with the law several times because he treated the mentally ill (for which he was not responsible as a surgeon) and, in appropriate cases, also administered opiates to them. In addition, he tried to accommodate the mentally ill after initial therapy on farms in the vicinity, where they took part in a kind of family care. Around 1775 he founded the private lunatic asylum Blockdiek. In addition, he convinced his two sons Hermann Engelken I and Friedrich Engelken II (1777–1829) to study medicine and become psychiatrists. Hermann Engelken I took over the Blockdiek facility from his father. His younger brother Friedrich Engelken II bought the Hodenberg estate in 1810 and also built a private insane asylum there, which was later continued by his son Friedrich Engelken III (1806-1858) and then by his grandson Friedrich Engelken IV. The latter died of tuberculosis as early as 1860, so that his father's cousin, Hermann Engelken II, was, in addition to the Blockdieck institution, head of the Hodenberg institution for some time.

Friedrich Engelken I is often referred to as the founder of family care for the mentally ill, which was completely new in contrast to the imprisonment and treatment of mentally ill patients under duress. Following the father or grandfather, the sons and grandchildren of Friedrich Engelken I used opium in certain cases, which initially remained a “family secret”. It was not until Hermann Engelken II reported on this treatment method in 1844 at the 22nd Meeting of German Naturalists and Doctors in Bremen. At that time, the use of opiates became the medical standard until new types of psychotropic drugs were developed in the 20th century. Hermann Engelken III enlarged the Blocksdieck institution considerably in 1890 and operated it with great success. After suffering a stroke in 1908, Blockdieck was transferred to Dr. Walter Benning sold. In 1954, Dr. Heines the clinic. Today's Ameos Klinikum, a specialist hospital for psychiatry, physiotherapy and psychosomatics in Bremen, is named after him.

Honors

In the Osterholz district, Ellenerbrok-Schevemoor, Engelkenweg was named after the family.

Fonts

• Contribution to the pathology of acute myelitis , Zurich medical dissertation, Zürcher & Furrer, Zurich 1867.
• About the sensitivity of the spinal cord to electrical irritation. With an introductory remark by A. Fick , Archive for Anatomy, Physiology and Scientific Medicine, Berlin, Vol. 34 (1867), pp. 198–209.
• Prospectus of the private healing and care institution for the nervous and mentally ill at Rockwinkel near Bremen , Bremen 1875.
• Report on the effectiveness of the private sanatorium and nursing home for the nervous and mentally ill at Rockwinkel near Bremen in 1876 , Bremen 1877.
• For the treatment of psychoneuroses in the family and about opium , Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, Vol. 41 (1885), pp. 77-110.
• Report on the family catering of the mentally ill to Ellen in 1884 , Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, Vol. 42 (1886), pp. 173-178.

literature

• Hermann. E. Engelken: Engelken family, in: Theodor Kirchhoff: Deutsche Irrenärzte, published by Julius Springer, Berlin 1921, Volume 1, pp. 223–227
• August Hirsch: Biographical Lexicon of Outstanding Doctors of All Times and Nations, Second Edition, Second Volume, Berlin and Vienna: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1930, p. 419 and supplementary volume 1935, p. 264 f.
• Carola Brunk: Gentle cure according to a secret recipe, Kurier am Sonntag, Bremen, April 4, 1993
• Alma Kreuter: German-speaking neurologists and psychiatrists, Munich a. a., Saur 1996, vol. 1, p. 295 f.
• Anke Hinrichs: Surgeon and modern “insane doctor”, Opium fürs sick Volk, Eppendorfer, Zeitung für Psychiatrie, Volume 26, Issue 07 & 08/2011, pp. 3-4

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Henning Tegtmeyer , Directory of Members of the Hannovera Göttingen Burschenschaft, 1848–1998, Düsseldorf 1998, page 39
2. ↑ see: Osterholz (Bremen) #Developments after 1850