Johann Jakob Guggenbühl

Johann Jakob Guggenbühl around the beginning of the 1850s with some of the children he cared for (illustration from: J. Guggenbühl: The Cretinen Sanatorium on the Abend-Berg in Switzerland , Ct.Bern, Bern and St. Gallen, 1853)

Johann Jakob Guggenbühl , also Johann Jacob Guggenbühl (born on August 13, 1816 in Meilen , Canton Zurich ; died on February 2, 1863 in Montreux , Canton of Vaud ) was a Swiss doctor and a pioneer of modern handicapped assistance . He was convinced that children with cretinism and other intellectual disabilities are capable of learning and can reach a "level of civic usefulness". In 1841, on the Abendberg near Interlaken , he founded the “Sanatorium for Cretins and Stupid Children”, one of the first institutions for mentally handicapped young people, which went beyond the conceptionless custodial institutions with a scientific-medical and educational-therapeutic approach to care.

Guggenbühl's claim to be able to cure cretinism, among other things through a diet, which did not correspond to his original intention for the establishment of the "Abendberg" institute, initially attracted a lot of international attention for his work in medical circles of his time. Although he ultimately failed with this claim and his institution was closed in 1860 after increasing criticism of his methods and principles by the authorities, his writings and findings from everyday work with the children and young people he looked after provided significant impulses for the rest of his life Development towards today's mentally handicapped pedagogy .

Live and act

Johann Jakob Guggenbühl was the son of the farmer Hans Jakob Guggenbühl and his wife Maria, geb. Hottinger from the then independent municipality of Obermeilen on Lake Zurich .

He first studied medicine in Zurich , then in Bern , where he received his doctorate in 1836 . In the canton of Glarus , he opened two years later, a doctor's office. Affected by contact with a mentally handicapped ( cretin ) child, he began to research this form of disability and came to believe that cretinism was curable. He made his first experiences with innovative educational concepts, some of which were based on the social reformer Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi , in Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg's agricultural education center in Hofwil . In the treatise Hülfsruf aus den Alpen, published in 1840 , on combating the terrible cretinism , Guggenbühl presented the results of his investigations and pleaded with the public to take care of the affected children with the aim of healing.

Guggenbühl describes the regional climatic conditions and the poor hygiene conditions in the villages as the causes of cretinism:

“No fresh breeze sweeps through the rooms, the hideous stench is a real balm for people; no ray of sunshine can illuminate them, as the windows, which are small anyway, are completely opaque from dirt and mostly stuck together with paper. The rooms are so damp, the cryptogams thrive on the walls, and are hung with unclean clothes and whatever else smells, so that a poison breath fills the room, which made me vomit several times. [...] After the birth, the children are tied into the cradle and lie on their filth for days; Locked up in a chamber, completely isolated and left to fend for themselves until the work is done. "

He developed a comprehensive concept for the treatment of cretinism and other intellectual disabilities, which included healthy eating, fresh mountain air, exercise therapy and special educational support including schooling. With this concept he opened a “sanatorium for cretins and stupid children” on a farm near Interlaken in 1841.

His therapeutic concept was based on "physical methods". All senses were trained, physical exercise and occupation were part of the daily program. Here he followed the two French doctors Jean Itard and Édouard Séguin , who were inspired by sensualistic philosophers such as B. Étienne Bonnot de Condillac and John Locke , practiced a "physiological education" in their institutions for mentally handicapped children instead of just locking them away. He also followed the principles of Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and Johann Basedow . At that time, the majority of medical professionals still assumed that idiocy was innate and that idiots were incapable of learning.

Although Guggenbühl's investigations and work during his lifetime became known and noticed in professional circles beyond the Swiss national borders, and disabled people from other European countries soon moved into his facility, he was not recognized by the local authorities in the long term. In addition, it turned out that Guggenbühl's claim and promise to cure cretinism were too high, which is why the controversy of his theses also increased in scientific circles. The criticism ranged in part to the charge of charlatanry . One of the last reasons for the closure of his sanatorium by the Bernese government in 1860 was the replacement of the Catholic housekeepers by Protestant deaconesses .

Even if Johann Jakob Guggenbühl's project to cure cretinism had ultimately failed, his work was nevertheless an impetus for new forms of assistance for the disabled and education for the mentally handicapped , which were taken up and further developed in other institutions, for example by the German doctor Carl Heinrich Rösch , one of the first to Guggenbühls hospital took as a model and in 1847 the sanatorium Mariaberg in the Kingdom of Württemberg had founded, which still today under the name Maria Berg eV exists and - extended with now stationary and outpatient services and advanced design - has developed into one of the largest service providers for youth and handicapped aid in the district of Sigmaringen , Baden-Württemberg. The Roman Catholic pastor Joseph Probst , who founded the Ecksberg Cretan Institute in Bavaria , was also inspired by Guggenbühl's ideas when it came to the therapy of cretan children. However, Guggenbühl's advice that Probst should appoint women religious as nurses in Ecksberg was not followed by Probst.

Guggenbühl was elected a member of the Leopoldina in 1857 .

For historical classification

Only after Guggenbühl was cretinism understood as a symptom of a thyroid dysfunction . The medical principles and names were unclear at the time. Cretinism was used by doctors and therapeutic teachers to describe a wide variety of symptoms: either only anatomical-physiological in connection with mental impairments, but also exclusively intellectual disabilities without corresponding anatomical-physiological changes. Guggenbühl assumed the following different degrees of cretinism: alpine goitre, stuntedness, dullness, leukethiopia, deaf-dumbness, nonsense and cretinism of the highest degree. His intention to cure cretinism was related to rickets.

Guggenbühl's "Abendberg" was one of several curative educational institutions in Europe that wanted to cure cretinism. The unusual methods of his concept were not tried. The opponents of such institutions so easily found many points of attack to send healing intentions completely into the realm of wishful thinking with fatal consequences for the individual institutions. The entire development of curative education was affected by the collapse of the "Abendberg" institution.

Fonts (selection)

• A cry for help from the Alps to combat the terrible cretinism. In: Malten's library of the latest world studies. Volume 1, Aarau 1840, p. 191 ff. (Online)
• Letters about the Abendberg and the Sanatorium for Cretinism , 1846
• The Cure and Prevention of Cretinism and Its Recent Advances , 1853 ( digitized )

literature

• Carl Heinrich Rösch : The foundation for cretin children on the evening mountain near Interlachen in Switzerland. Ebner & Seubert, Stuttgart 1842 ( digitized version ).
• Ida Countess Hahn-Hahn : The children on the evening mountain. A Christmas present. Berlin: Alexander Duncker 1843.
• Guggenbühl. In: Heinrich August Pierer : Universal Lexicon of the Present and the Past . Volume 7, Altenburg 1859, p. 759
• Karl Alther: Dr. Johann Jakob Guggenbühl (1816–1863) and the beginnings of Swiss idiot welfare / with regard to the V Swiss Conference for Idiots. Zollikofer, St. Gallen, 1905
• Hermann Rengger: Dr. med. Johann Jakob Guggenbühl (1816–1863), the founder of the first sanatorium for cretins, and his views on cretinism. HA Gutzwiller A.-G., Zurich 1927
• Leo Kanner : Johann Jakob Guggenbühl and the Abendberg . In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Volume 32, 1959, pp. 489-502
• Heinz Balmer :  Guggenbühl, Johann Jakob. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 294 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Rolf Streuli: Johann Jakob Guggenbühl and the cretine hospital on the Abendberg near Interlaken. Published by the Uferschutzverband Thuner- und Brienzersee, Schaefli, Interlaken 1973.
• Horst Isermann: The Swiss Physician Johann Jakob von Guggenbühl (1816–1863). A Pioneer in the Care for Mentally Retarded People? In: Series of publications of the German Society for the History of Neurology Volume 13. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2007 ISSN  1430-8339 .
• Gerhardt Nissen : Cultural history of mental disorders in children and adolescents. Stuttgart 2005, pp. 91-94.
• Johannes Gstach: Cretinism and nonsense: For the technical-scientific discovery and construction of phenomena of intellectual and mental abnormalities between 1780 and 1900 and their significance for questions of education and treatment. Klinkhardt Research, Bad Heilbrunn 2014 ( full text of the habilitation thesis ).

Web links

• Christian Müller : Guggenbühl, Johann Jakob. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Johann Jakob Guggenbuehl, Swiss physician at sciencephoto.com (English, with picture)

Single receipts

1. ^ Gerhardt Nissen : Cultural history of mental disorders in children and adolescents. Stuttgart 2005, p. 92.
2. ↑ see under History of Special Education (www.sonderpaed-online.de)
3. ^ Gerhardt Nissen : Cultural history of mental disorders in children and adolescents. Stuttgart 2005, p. 92.
4. ↑ Johann Jakob Guggenbühl: Help call from the Alps, to combat the terrible cretinism. In: Malten's library of the latest world studies. Volume 1, Aarau 1840, p. 191 ff. (Online)
5. ^ Gerhardt Nissen : Cultural history of mental disorders in children and adolescents. Stuttgart 2005, pp. 85f and 93.
6. ↑ for a contextual overview of Guggenbühl's impact and failure cf. Thomas Hoffmann: Work and Development: On the Institutionalization of Mental Disabilities in the 19th Century (PDF) Online excerpt from: Günther Cloerkes / Jörg-Michael Kastl, (Ed.): Living and working under difficult conditions. People with disabilities in the network of institutions , Verlag Winter, Heidelberg 2007, p. 107
7. ↑ Cf. on this by Johannes Gstach: Kretinismus und Blödsinn: For the technical-scientific discovery and construction of phenomena of intellectual and mental abnormalities between 1780 and 1900 and their significance for questions of education and treatment. Klinkhardt Research, Bad Heilbrunn 2014, especially pages 154–159, 184 and 304.