Konrad Rieger

Konrad Rieger

Konrad Rieger (born March 28, 1855 in Calw ; † March 21, 1939 in Würzburg ) was a German psychiatrist , clinic director, university professor and psychiatry historian .

Life

Rieger, the son of a pastor, was supposed to be a theologian , but decided to study medicine and studied in Tübingen and Würzburg . In 1878, at the age of 23, he became an assistant to Franz von Rinecker in the psychiatric department of the Juliusspital in Würzburg. He was the successor to Emil Kraepelin , with whom he remained friends for decades. After studying in Paris with Jean-Martin Charcot , in Leipzig and Berlin , Rieger completed his habilitation in Würzburg in 1882. After Rinecker's death he was his deputy until 1884 and in 1887 he succeeded Hubert von Grashey , initially as associate professor and from August 1895 as full professor of psychiatry. In 1888, Rieger designed the first method for measuring intelligence defects. He tested perception, comprehension, memory and how the tested person names sensory impressions.

The psychiatric conditions in the Juliusspital Würzburg had become completely untenable in the 1880s, so that Rieger initiated the construction of an independent psychiatric clinic at the University of Würzburg, which could be moved into in 1893. This clinic brought a fundamental advance insofar as a special place was assigned to scientific research in the planning. The psychiatric clinic at the University of Würzburg was not just a hospital, but also a scientific institute. Nevertheless, the financial resources made available by the Bavarian state for the psychiatric clinic were extremely low, so that both the clinic building and the health care facilities barely met the most modest requirements. Until his release in April 1925, Rieger was unable to have any major structural changes made to the clinic.

Rieger's scientific publications deal with areas of skull theory , neurological , physiological , psychological and psychopathological questions, muscle states (to which he devoted his special interest), brain localization and brain events, intelligence , hypnotism , hysteria , psychological epidemics and aphasia .

Publications (selection)

• About the Relationship of Skull Science to Physiology, Psychiatry and Ethnology (1882).
• The hypnotism. Psychiatric contributions to the knowledge of the so-called hypnotic states (G. Fischer, Jena 1884).
• Experimental investigations into volitional activity (1885).
• Description of the intelligence disorders as a result of a brain injury, together with a draft for a generally applicable method for the intelligence test (1888).
• Guide to the psychiatric clinic (1889).
• Psychiatry in Würzburg from 1583–1893. In: Negotiations of the Physico-Medical Society in Würzburg, New Series. Volume 27, 1893, pp. 1-74.
• 1. Report for the members of the association for the exchange of institution reports from the psychiatric clinic of the University of Würzburg, containing essays by the board of the clinic: About psychiatry in Würzburg for three hundred years. Wuerzburg 1898.
• Second report from the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Würzburg. Wuerzburg 1905.
• Castration in legal, social and vital terms (1900).
• From the Julius Hospital and the oldest psychiatric clinic. In: A hundred years Bavarian. A festival book. Edited by the city of Würzburg. Würzburg 1914, pp. 303-334.
• The Julius University and the Julius Hospital. 5. Report from the years 1912–1916 from the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Würzburg. Wuerzburg 1916.
• Anton Müller. In: Theodor Kirchhoff (Ed.): Deutsche Irrenärzte. Individual images of their life and work. Volume 1 ff., Berlin 1921 ff., Volume 1, 1921, pp. 25-27.

literature

• Martin Reichardt: Konrad Rieger † . In: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 110 (June 1939), pp. 165-168.
• Konrad Rieger † . In: Journal for the entire neurology and psychiatry 166 (December 1939), pp. 309-312.
• Rudolf Vierhaus (Ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia . 2nd Edition. Volume 8: Poethen – Schlüter . Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-598-25038-5 , p. 399.