Johann Christian Reil

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Johann Christian Reil, 1811

Johann Christian Reil (born February 20, 1759 in Rhaude , today part of Rhauderfehn , † November 22, 1813 in Halle (Saale) ) was a German physician and pioneer of romantic medicine . He was an anatomist , surgeon , physiologist, gynecologist , ophthalmologist , spa doctor and reformer . His fame is based primarily on his work in the field of psychosomatics . Today he is considered the founder of modern psychiatry , and in 1808 he also used the term "psychiatry" for the first time.

Life

origin

The Reil family comes from Braunschweig. His parents were Johann Julius Friedrich Reil (1716–1780) - pastor in East Frisian Rhaude and Norden  - and his wife Anna Jansen-Streng (1731–1802). He had four younger siblings.

career

He studied medicine in 1779 in Göttingen and from 1780 in Halle ad Saale under the professors Philipp Friedrich Theodor Meckel and Johann Friedrich Gottlieb Goldhagen (1742–1788). The latter took Reil personally on March 1, 1782 as a master from the chair of the Masonic Lodge "To the three swords" (1777–1786). After his doctorate in medicine and surgery in 1782, Reil completed a mandatory internship in Berlin to gain a license to practice medicine as a Prussian doctor. Here he lived with Henriette and Markus Herz . The latter was a doctor at the Jewish Hospital and impressed Reil with his connection between Kant's enlightenment philosophy and medicine and the natural sciences. Then Reil worked for a few years as a general practitioner in Norden (East Frisia) . Here he wrote a practical guide in 1785 entitled Dietetic General Practitioner for My Compatriots .

In 1787 he received an extraordinary professorship in medicine at the University of Halle . After the unexpected death of his mentor and predecessor Goldhagen in 1788, Reil became full professor of therapy and director of the 15-bed clinic. In the same year he married Johanna Wilhelmine Leveaux († 1813). In 1789, Reil was also appointed city ​​physician . In 1792, at the suggestion of Reil, the Degen-Lodge acquired the “Jägerberg” next to the Moritzburg (hall) , on which the Lodge House Zu den Drei Degen was later built. A year later, Reil became a member of the Leopoldina . In 1809 he was appointed a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

In Halle, Reil made a name for himself not only as a doctor, university lecturer, brain anatomist and philosopher , but also as a promoter of the bathing industry. So he got involved in the establishment of a spa bathing establishment, which was opened in 1809. When he was appointed to the newly founded Berlin University in 1810, where he was to hold the chair for clinical medicine, he had previously stipulated that he would be allowed to spend several months as a bath doctor in Halle during the bathing season. Reil's concept of parks and salons also included a theater that he founded in 1811 in the church of the former barefoot monastery. Among the many spa guests from all over Germany were Johann Wolfgang Goethe , who held Reil in high esteem and had himself treated by him after Schiller's death in 1805 (cf. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe # Der late Goethe (1805–1832) ), and Wilhelm Grimm . For the opening of the theater, Goethe wrote the “Prologue for Halle”. As an obituary, Goethe also dedicated the prelude “What we bring” to him in 1814.

Reil received various appointments to other professorships, for example to Göttingen in 1802 and to Freiburg in 1809. In gratitude for his services and the rejection of the call to Göttingen, the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. 1803 a mountain on the Giebichenstein (today " Reilsberg ") used as a vineyard and sheep pasture . Reil built a villa here (today "Reilsvilla"), had the mountain redesigned into a park and chose a prehistoric stone grave as a burial site while he was still alive. In 1901 the Hallesche Bergzoo was opened on the premises . In 1808, Reil was also awarded the title of Oberbergrat with the associated salary.

In 1810, Reil was one of Wilhelm von Humboldt's advisors when the Berlin university was founded and was persuaded to take on a full professorship at the Charité . In 1811 he became the first elected dean of the medical faculty and took over the management of the "Scientific Deputation for the Medical System" at the Ministry of the Interior. Among other things, Reil campaigned for the improvement of the catastrophic conditions of the military hospitals throughout Prussia. In the wars of liberation he took over the management of the military hospitals in Leipzig and Halle at the beginning of October 1813. There he experienced the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig from October 16 to 18, 1813, when the 30,000 wounded could hardly be adequately cared for. He himself fell ill with typhus and traveled back to Halle with a fever, where he died on November 22, 1813 at around two o'clock in the morning. He left two sons and three daughters. His wife died in childbed in December 1813. In 1830 Reil's son-in-law, the medical professor Peter David Krukenberg , had a sarcophagus-like sandstone monument erected over Reil's grave.

Reil was a co-founder of several philosophically oriented journals (1805 to 1806 with Adalbert Kayssler the magazine for psychological medicine , with Johann Christoph Hoffbauer 1808 to 1810 the contributions to the promotion of a cure method on the psychological path ).

family

In 1788 he married Johanna Wilhelmine Le Veaux (March 1, 1770 - December 26, 1813), the daughter of a wealthy Huguenot family in Halle. The couple had 2 sons and 4 daughters, including:

  • Johann Christian Julian (* April 20, 1792; † August 31, 1858), Secret Bergrat, chief smelter in Silesia, he founded the first loan office in the Upper Silesian industrial area ⚭ 1819 Emilie Bückling (* November 29, 1795; † January 1, 1867), Daughter of Carl Friedrich Bückling
  • Johanna Friederike Wilhelmine (* July 11, 1789; † July 5, 1868) ⚭ Friedrich von Schele (1782–1815), Privy Councilor
  • Emilie Auguste (born November 20, 1793; † March 5, 1881) ⚭ 1815 Peter Krukenberg (1787–1865), professor of pathology and therapy
  • Carl Wilhelm (born December 13, 1795 - † February 5, 1828), Dr. med., doctor in Halberstadt, Linz and Cologne (single)
  • Amalie Rosamunde Iphigenie (born November 10, 1798; † November 9, 1872) ⚭ 1821 Dietrich Georg von Kieser (1779–1862), professor of medicine in Jena
  • Luise Charlotte Marianne (February 12, 1802; † 1865) ⚭ Friedrich Bluhme (1797–1874), Professor of Law in Hanover, Göttingen and Bonn

plant

Reil was considered one of the most important doctors and medical writers of his time, who mastered both theoretical and practical medicine. His investigations into the structure of the brain and nerves in “Exercitationum anatomicarum Fasc. I, de structura nervorum ”from 1796 had a pioneering effect. In 1795 he founded the "Archive for Physiology", in which he tried to combine practical medicine with physiology on a scientific basis. In his programmatic treatise on life force, he took the view that all appearances are either matter or ideas, and that all appearances occurring in animal bodies are based on the diversity of the basic animal substances and on the mixture and form thereof. Since each organ presents peculiar phenomena, each one also has a special life force, irritability and predisposition to disease. With this approach, Reil proved to be a main exponent of vitalism and a pioneer of romantic medicine , which was essentially based on the natural philosophy brought about by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and tried to classify people into a universal system of nature. Reil was also a staunch supporter of Franz Anton Mesmer's teachings and tried to bring him to Berlin. Together with Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland , Reil recommended a "Commission for the Examination of Magnetism" in Berlin, which began its work in 1812 under the chairmanship of Hufeland.

Fever theory

His main work was about the knowledge and curation of fever (5 volumes, Halle 1799-1815). In it, Reil rejected the approach of explaining fever exclusively as a change in irritability and argued that the symptoms of fever must come from a "disease inherent in the febrile organ itself", but that this alone is not a fever. All organs could produce a fever, but the fever was still not an “absolutely general disease”. Reil thus removed the symptoms of fever from an actual illness and instead understood it as a uniform mode of reaction of different organs from different causes. An essential achievement of Reil's theory of fever is to understand fever as an organic mode of functioning under pathological conditions and thus to characterize it as a uniform reaction of the organism in various diseases.

psychiatry

Of the three healing methods differentiated by Reil (chemical, physical-mechanical and psychological), the psychological healing method appeared to him to be the most important. Reil had already devoted the fourth volume of his fever theory to nervous diseases. But his work “ Rhapsodies on the application of the psychological curse method on mental disruptions”, in which he dealt with the entire field of psychiatry in an informal manner, was supposed to be almost classic . By "mental disturbances" he understood deviation from common sense. On the one hand, Reil tried to trace the pathology and therapy of mental illnesses back to the nervous system by means of the "mental spa method". On the other hand, he discussed the existing insane system and developed his own reform proposals. He called for the establishment of his own sanatoriums, which should be connected with chairs of psychiatry, and recommended therapies that in the broader sense anticipated psychotherapeutic techniques such as psychodrama, occupational therapy and shock therapy . In addition, together with the natural philosopher Adalbert Bartholomäus Kayssler (1769–1821) he founded the first German psychiatric periodical with the “Magazin für die Psychische Heilkunde” (1805–1806) and later gave the “Contributions to the promotion of a cure method” with the philosopher Johann Christoph Hoffbauer on a psychological path ”(1808–1812). In these journals, which he co-founded, but mainly philosophically oriented, Reil tried to bring in psychosomatic and somatic aspects.

Due to his psychiatric work, Reil is not only considered to be the “German Pinel ” and the founder of modern neurology and psychiatry. He also coined the term "psychiatry" for the first time in 1808 in an essay "On the concept of medicine and its ramifications, especially in relation to the correction of the topic in psychiatry" in his journal "Contributions to the promotion of a cure method on a psychological path" . His concepts found literary echo in the works of ETA Hoffmann .

neurology

As a result of Reil's anatomical research, the insula reilii has entered the nomenclature of brain anatomy.

Appreciation

Reil's name is still present in various forms in Halle. The Reilstraße, the Reilsberg , the Reileck, the Reilshof, the Reilsbäder, the Reil-Schule and the Poli-Reil are named after him. His bust is on Reilstrasse. Furthermore, on May 25, 2011, Reil was honored with a plaque attached to his former home at Grosse Ulrichstraße 36. Schools and social institutions in East Friesland are named after him.

  • Title page of the main work Rhapsodies on the application of the psychic cure method on mental disturbances , yet without naming the author

  • Brain illustration
    Excerpt from Reil 1812, Volume XI, Plate XIII

  • Monument to J. Chr. Reil in Halle

  • Johann Christian Reil's grave site on the Reilsberg in Halle (Saale)

  • Memorial plaque for Johann Christian Reil in Rhaude at the rectory

  • Memorial plaque for J. Chr. Reil on his house at Große Ulrichstraße 36, Halle (Saale)

Fonts (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Johann Christian Reil  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiversity: Reil, Johann Christian (1803)  - course materials
Wikisource: Johann Christian Reil  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Schrenk: About dealing with the mentally ill. The development of psychiatric therapy from the “moral regime” in England and France to the “psychological curative methods” in Germany. Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 1973 (= monographs from the entire field of psychiatry. Volume 10), p. 3.
  2. ↑ Prof. Dr. Johann Christian Reil , member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences
  3. ^ Gero von Wilpert: Goethe. The 101 most important questions . Munich 2007, p. 17. Wilhelm Grimm to Jacob Grimm, April 10, 1809 ( Memento from September 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Bernhard Meyer: "Eternal in the world memory". The physician Johann Christian Reil (1759–1813) . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 7, 2000, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 67-73 ( luise-berlin.de ). Henrich Steffens: Johann Christian Reil. A memorandum. Hall 1815; archive.org .
  5. ^ Gundolf Keil : German psychiatric journals of the 19th century. In: Gundolf Keil, Gerhardt Nissen (Ed.): Psychiatry on the way to science. Psychiatry-historical symposium on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the opening of the "Psychiatric Clinic of the Royal University of Würzburg". Stuttgart / New York 1985, pp. 28-35, here: pp. 30-32.
  6. ↑ Meyer: Eternal. Pp. 67-68.
  7. ^ Walter Artelt: Mesmerism in Berlin. Mainz 1965, pp. 28-42.
  8. ↑ Volker Hess: The well-tempered person. Science and everyday life of measuring fever (1850–1900) . Frankfurt am Main 2000, pp. 65-66.
  9. ↑ Johann Christian Reil: Rhapsodies on the application of the psychic curse method on mental disruptions. 1803, p. 27 f.
  10. ↑ Werner Leibbrand , Annemarie Wettley : The madness. History of Western Psychopathology. Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau and Munich 1961 (= Orbis Academicus , II, 12), p. 394.
  11. ^ Klaus Dörner : Citizens and Irre. On the social history and sociology of science in psychiatry. (= Books of knowledge ). Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-436-02101-6 , p. 229 f.
  12. ↑ Magdalena Frühinsfeld: Brief outline of psychiatry. 1991, p. 48.
  13. ↑ Andreas Marneros: Psychiatry's 200th Birthday. In: The British Journal of Psychiatry. Volume 108, 2008, pp. 1-3.
  14. ↑ A. Mechler: The word ›Psychiatry‹. In: Neurologist. Volume 34, 1963, pp. 405-406.
  15. ↑ Henriett Lindner: "Schnöde feats of fallen spirits." ETA Hoffmann's work in the context of contemporary psychology. Wuerzburg 2001.
personal data
SURNAME Reil, Johann Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor
DATE OF BIRTH February 20, 1759
PLACE OF BIRTH Rhaude
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 1813
Place of death Halle (Saale)