Jenny Thomann-Koller

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Jenny Koller around 1895

Jenny Thomann-Koller (born September 14, 1866 in Zurich ; † February 5, 1949 there ) was a Swiss gynecologist and pediatrician and department head of the Swiss School of Nursing in Zurich. In her dissertation published in 1895 with the topic Contribution to the hereditary statistics of the mentally ill in the Canton of Zurich; Comparison of the same with the hereditary burden of healthy people through mental disorders and the like. the like. , she introduced a control group for the first time and was thus able to question the then widespread degeneration theory .

Life

Jenny Koller was born in Zurich on September 14, 1866. She was the second child of Konrad Adolf Koller, horse hair manufacturer and merchant, and Katharina, née Huber. As a gifted student, she wanted to become a teacher. However, her progressive-minded mother advised her to study medicine and led her to Marie Heim-Vögtlin (1845–1916), the first female Swiss doctor. She told her about the difficulties of her studies and the job, but presented her medical work as very meaningful and satisfying. With the aim of studying medicine, Jenny Koller attended the seminar for teachers from 1883 to 1887. In the summer semester of 1887 she began studying medicine at the University of Zurich and graduated in 1892 with the medical state examination. This was followed by a seven-month assistantship at the Charité in Paris - women were allowed to study in Switzerland, but assistant positions were not available to them. Back in Zurich, Jenny Koller repeatedly took on a substitute as an assistant doctor in the Rheinau nursing home . In 1893/94 she opened her first private practice for gynecology and pediatrics. Her dissertation Contribution to the inheritance statistics of the mentally ill in the Canton of Zurich; Comparison of the same with the hereditary burden of healthy people through mental disorders and the like. The like she published in 1895 in the Archive for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases . In the 1890s she had ties to the Swiss Society for Ethical Culture. Her name also appeared in 1902 among the members of the association of abstinent doctors in the German-speaking area. In 1901 she married Heinrich Thomann, the director of the newly founded statistical office of the city of Zurich, with whom she had three children (Heinrich 1902, Jenny 1904, Felix 1908). She continued the private medical practice. As Jenny Thomann-Koller, she began her long-term activity at the Swiss Nursing School and Women's Hospital, which opened in Zurich in 1901. As early as 1899 she was a member of the leading committee of the Nursing Commission of the Swiss Charitable Women's Association and was thus involved in the planning of the new company. She was to hold her position as a department doctor until 1919. In 1923 Heinrich Thomann suffered a stroke that impaired his ability to think and speak. A second stroke resulted in death in 1925. Thomann-Koller continued her large practice at Schanzengasse 29 until 1933 and then on a smaller scale at Lintheschergasse 10 until 1941. She spent the last few years with the children and grandchildren and most recently in the old people's home; she died in 1949 at the age of 83.

Act

Jenny Koller followed her educational and professional path together with three other Zurich women. They attended the teachers' seminar from 1883 to 1887. From 1887 to 1892 they studied medicine at the University of Zurich; they completed their studies with the state examination. Soon after, they did their doctorate with an inaugural dissertation to become a doctor of medicine. Three of them, Jenny Koller (from 1901 Thomann-Koller), Ida Schmid (from 1896 Hilfiker-Schmid) and Pauline Gottschall, led private practices as gynecologists and pediatricians in Zurich for over thirty years. The fourth, Josephine Zürcher (Fallscheer-Zürcher from 1899), spent three decades as a doctor in the Ottoman Empire . It is not only remarkable that the Zurich doctors published scientific papers in specialist journals, but also that they took a position against the then widespread theory of degeneration as well as against the emerging eugenic tendencies and already practiced eugenic measures.

The statistical study

In her dissertation contribution to the inheritance statistics of the mentally ill in the Canton of Zurich; Comparison of the same with the hereditary burden of healthy people through mental disorders and the like. like. went Jenny Koller new ways. She was the first to introduce a control group and, on the basis of the comparison, came to the conclusion that the “hereditary burden on healthy people […] is much greater than is commonly assumed and […] proves the effect of the regenerative factor ]. » In doing so, she challenged the degeneration theory widely accepted in psychiatry as well as by her professor Auguste Forel and enabled a more differentiated diagnosis of the hereditary nature of mental disorders. Ten years later, Otto Diem confirmed their results in an equally thorough, more extensive study. Koller's work and, after 1905, Diems too, triggered a discussion on an international level that continued until around 1930. The most well-known psychiatrists ( Korbinian Brodmann , Julius Wagner von Jauregg , Emil Kraepelin , Karl Jaspers , Oswald Bumke , Karl Pearson , Philip Coombs Knapp and others) were involved in specialist journals, textbooks and at congresses and referred to the Koller study. Jenny Koller's pioneering study is also recognized in the latest studies on the history of statistics and eugenics.

Private practice

Despite the intensive examination of psychiatric issues and her practical clinical experience in the Rheinau nursing home, Jenny Koller (after 1901: Jenny Thomann-Koller) decided to go into private practice as a gynecologist and pediatrician. Her practices were at Dufourstrasse 47 (1893 / 94–1901), Seefeldstrasse 19 (1902–1909), Schanzengasse 29 (1910–1933) and Lintheschergasse 10 (until 1941).

“Initially she was quite shy, but with growing experience she became more and more self-confident, and she gained the trust of wide circles. She took care of her patients not only medically, but also personally, had a pronounced feeling for the intrinsic worth of a person regardless of their status. She also endeavored to further educate herself and for this purpose traveled to Berlin to attend an obstetrics course. "

- Jenny Thomann about her mother

Nursing school

Jenny Thomann-Koller was one of three department doctors at the Swiss School of Nursing and Hospital founded in 1901. She was a specialist in internal medicine, Anna Heer was the director and also a specialist in gynecology and obstetrics, and Marie Heim-Vögtlin looked after the nursery and maternal women. The duties of the department physicians included: treating patients in their departments together with the general practitioner; mutual support and representation during operations and on Sundays and public holidays; together with the superior they formed the admission committee. All three doctors worked free of charge, except for the income from private patients, as they also ran their private practices that were running well. The original team of doctors remained the same until the First World War. In 1914, however, Matron Ida Schneider resigned, Heim-Vögtlin retired in 1915, Heer died in 1918, and Thomann-Koller also said goodbye in 1919. The registers and journals of the obstetrical and gynecological departments show the longstanding close relationship with the “Pflegei”, where Jenny Thomann-Koller's name is regularly noted. Her name can also be found in the logs. However, there are no reports or personal statements from Thomann-Koller (as well as the other doctors) about their experiences.

Fonts

literature

  • Katharina Banzhaf: Forerunner of psychiatric genetics: The psychiatric hereditary research in German-speaking psychiatry in the mirror of the "Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie", 1844 to 1911. Gießen 2014, urn : nbn: de: hebis: 26-opus-114600 (med. Dissertation, University of Giessen, 2014).
  • Bernd Gausemeier: Pedigree vs. Mendelism. Concepts of Heredity in Psychiatry before and after 1900. In: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science : Conference: A Cultural History of Heredity IV: Heredity in the Century of the Gene (= Preprint. 343). Berlin 2008, pp. 149-162 ( PDF ).
  • Sylvia Baumann Kurer: The foundation of the Swiss Nursing School with a women's hospital in Zurich in 1901 and its chief physician Anna Heer (1863–1918). Juris Druck + Verlag, Zurich 1991, ISBN 978-3-260-0529-10 (medical dissertation, University of Zurich, 1991).
  • Theodore M. Porter: Asylums of Hereditary Research in the Efficient Modern State. In: Staffan Müller-Wille, Christina Brandt (Ed.): Heredity Explored: Between Public Domain and Experimental Science . MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.) / London 2016, ISBN 978-0-262-03443-2 , 81-109.
  • Theodore M. Porter: Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity. Princeton University Press, Princeton / Oxford 2018, ISBN 1-400-8905-00 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  • Hans Jakob Ritter:  From the insane statistics to the «hereditary burden» of the population. The development of the Swiss statistics for insane between 1850 and 1914.  In: Traverse .  Vol. 10 (2003), pp. 59-70,  DOI: 10.5169 / seals-23617 , here: p. 66.
  • Heidi Thomann Tewarson: The first Zurich doctors. Humanitarian engagement and scientific work in the era of eugenics. Schwabe, Basel 2018, ISBN 3-796-5375-02 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Uarda Frutiger: Doctor in the Orient even if the Sultan doesn't like it. Josephina Th. Zürcher (1866–1932) (= Basel publications on the history of medicine and biology. Volume 1). Schwabe, Basel 1987, p. 40.
  2. ^ Hanny Rohner: The first 30 years , 61 f. There she is wrongly called "Johanna". «Koller married Dr. phil. Heinrich Thomann (1860–1925) », cf. Registration number 5785. See registration number 7892 (Koller)
  3. ↑ Directory of the students in the teachers' seminar. Sig. VH c.98: 2.6.1.2. City of Zurich City Archives.
  4. ↑ Pauline Gottschall, Jenny Koller, Ida Schmid, Josephine Zürcher: Matriculation edition of the University of Zurich 1833-1924.
  5. ↑ Heidi Thomann Tewarson: The first Zurich doctors. Humanitarian engagement and scientific work at the time of eugenics (Basel 2018); Gerda Sdun-Fallscheer: Years of Life. The story of a family in Palestine at the turn of the century up to World War II (1985); Uarda Frutiger: Doctor in the Orient even if the Sultan doesn't like it. Josephina Th. Zürcher (1866–1932) (1987).
  6. ↑ Jenny Koller (1895), p. 285.
  7. ↑ Otto Diem: The psycho-neurotic hereditary burden of the mentally healthy and the mentally ill. A statistical-critical investigation based on own observations. In: Archives for Racial and Social Biology . Vol. 2 (1905), H. 2, pp. 216-252, and H. 3, pp. 336-368.
  8. ↑ Korbinian Brodmann : The question of heredity in neuropathology. In: Journal of Hypnotism. 1897, pp. 245-247; Karl Jaspers : General Psychopathology. A guide for students, doctors and psychologists. Berlin 1913; Julius Wagner von Jauregg : About hereditary burden. Inaugural lecture given at the takeover of the 2nd Psychiatric Clinic in Vienna. In: Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift. Vol. 15 (1902), H. 44, pp. 1153-1159; Philip Coombs Knapp: Heredity in Diseases of the Nervous System with Especial Reference to Heredity in Epilepsy. In: Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. Vol. 157 (1907), No. 15, October 10, 1907, DOI: 10.1056 / NEJM190710101571502 , pp. 485-490 (esp. 488-489); Emil Kraepelin : Psychiatry. A textbook for students and doctors. 8th edition. Leipzig 1909; Ernst Rüdin : Newer psychiatric-genealogical examinations according to Diem-Koller's stress calculation. In: Zentralblatt for the entire neurology and psychiatry. 29: 173-176 (1922); Wilhelm Strohmayer: Aims and ways of hereditary research in neuro- and psychopathology. In: General journal for psychiatry . Vol. 61 (1904), pp. 355-369.
  9. ↑ Katharina Banzhaf: Precursors of psychiatric genetics: The psychiatric heredity research in German-speaking psychiatry in the mirror of the Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, 1844–1911 , Inaugural dissertation (Gießen 2014). B. Gausemeyer: Pedigree vs. Mendelism. Concepts of Heredity in Psychiatry before and after 1900 , in: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (2008), 149–162; B. Gausemeier: Pedigree of madness: the study of heredity in late nineteenth and early twentieth century psychiatry , in: History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (Volume 36, Issue 4, February 2015), pp. 467-483; TM Porter: Asylums of Hereditary Research in the Efficient Modern State, in: S. Müller-Wille; C. Brandt (ed.): Heredity Explored: Between Public Domain and Experimental Science (2016) , 81–109; Ders .: Genetics in the Madhouse (Princeton 2018).
  10. ↑ Typoscript n.d. (private property Heidi Thomann Tewarson)
  11. ^ Sylvia Baumann Kurer: The founding of the Swiss nursing school with women's hospital in Zurich in 1901 and its chief physician Anna Heer (1863–1918) (Zurich 1991), pp. 34–40, 53.
  12. ^ Gosteli archive Worblaufen : Swiss School of Nursing.

11. Sylvia Baumann Kurer [...] pp. 34-40, 53.

personal data
SURNAME Thomann-Koller, Jenny
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Koller, Jenny
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss gynecologist and pediatrician
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH February 5, 1949
Place of death Zurich