Otto Löwenstein (psychiatrist)

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Otto Löwenstein , later Otto Lowenstein (born May 7, 1889 in Osnabrück , † March 25, 1965 in New York ), was a German - American neuropsychiatrist and pioneer in the field of research on human pupils .

Life

In Germany

Otto Löwenstein was born as the son of Julius Löwenstein and Henrietta Grunewald and grew up in Preussisch Oldendorf . He was a sickly child who read a lot and was sent to a family in the Black Forest as a foster child for a year because of lung problems . In 1909 Löwenstein, who was of Jewish origin, converted to Protestantism . Löwenstein first studied mathematics and philosophy at the Georg August University of Göttingen, and later medicine at the University of Bonn . After his state examination he was a medical intern at the Rhenish Provincial Insane Asylum from March 28, 1913 , and received his doctorate in Bonn in 1914 with the thesis: The sanity of hallucinants, assessed according to psychological principles . In 1920 he and his cousin Martha Grunewald married; they had the daughters Anne Elisabeth and Marie Dorothea.

In the First World War , which soon broke out , Löwenstein served as the first garrison doctor in a military nervous station in Metz . Returned to Bonn after the end of the war in 1918, he became an assistant to the neurologist and psychiatrist Alexander Westphal there . In 1919 he became a prison doctor, in 1920 senior physician and, after his habilitation in psychiatry and neurology, private lecturer at the university, which in 1923 appointed him a non-official associate professor. In 1926 he became the first director of the newly founded Provincial Children's Institute for Mentally Abnormalities , the first of its kind in the world, and director of the Institute for Neurological-Psychiatric Genetic Research at the University of Bonn. Together with his wife, he conducted over 100 interviews to research family-related neurological diseases. In addition, he dealt with pupillography to find out whether one could draw conclusions about mental and neurological diseases by observing pupils and developed the first apparatus and methods for this discipline.

On August 11, 1930 Otto Löwenstein was appointed full professor for pathopsychology (endowed professorship of the Rh. Landesklinik). This rapid career aroused envious people in the faculty, especially with Walther Poppelreuter , who then stood in the background of an action on March 8, 1933 by about 80 SA men who wanted to drag him through the city in chains and put him in protective custody after Hitler's seizure of power should take. The institute was devastated and Löwenstein's assistants were mistreated. Poppelreuter became his successor. Löwenstein had been warned by telephone, went into hiding and fled to Switzerland with his family on March 10 via the Saar region .

In Switzerland and the USA

In Nyon Löwenstein worked at a private sanatorium La Métairie , which he expanded to include a children's clinic. He was also a member of the Medical Faculty of the University of Geneva for ophthalmology and there from 1935 head of the laboratory for pupillography .

After the November pogroms in 1938 , during which the synagogue in Osnabrück , his hometown, was burned down, Otto Löwenstein decided to leave Europe. In 1938 he emigrated to Canada, where he was visiting professor in Montreal , and from there to the United States, where he worked at New York University and later at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital . Together with his assistant Irene Löwenfeld , he continued his neuroophthalmological research. In 1957, for example, they built an “electronic pupillograph” with infrared technology. This device was used to measure the diameter of pupils and was the forerunner of other instruments in later years. The experiments and publications by Löwenstein and Löwenfeld were pioneering achievements in the field of pupil research and contributed significantly to its entry into neuroophthalmology.

In 1964 the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Bonn awarded Löwenstein an honorary doctorate , after he had already been rehabilitated as a professor at the university in 1955. While he was writing the last lines for his major work on the pupil at that time, he fell ill with gastric cancer . He handed the work over to Irene Löwenfeld, who had meanwhile received her PhD from Bonn University with Löwenstein as a mentor and who completed the book in the following years. The 2000-page publication first appeared in 1993.

Honors

On June 25, 1993, the new building, into which the "Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy" and the "Department of Speech Disorders" of the LVR Clinic Bonn had moved in 1992, was named: "Prof. Otto Löwenstein House ".

Publications (selection)

  • With Irene Löwenfeld: The Pupil. Anatomy, Physiology, and Clinical Applications. (2 volume set). Woburn, Massachusetts, Butterworth-Heinemann Medical 1999.
  • The psychological restitution effect. The principle of the mentally conditioned restoration of the tired, the exhausted and the sick function. Basel, B. Schwabe & Co 1937
  • Disorders of the light reflex of the pupil in syphilitic diseases of the central nervous system. Contributions to the early diagnosis of syphilis nervosa . Basel 1937.
  • With Alexander Westphal: Experimental and clinical studies on the physiology and pathology of pupillary movements with special consideration of schizophrenia . (Treatises from neurology, psychiatry, and their border areas, volume 70). Karger, Berlin 1933.
  • Experimental doctrine of hysteria . At the same time an attempt to experimentally lay the foundations for assessing the psychogenic consequences of accidents. Bonn, F. Cohen 1923.
  • The sanity of hallucinants judged according to psychological principles. Bonn 1914.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the information in the article refers to Forsbach's book, which is based on Waibel's dissertation and the archive of the University of Bonn.
  2. ^ A b Salomon Wininger: Great Jewish National Biography. 1936, p. 274 f.
  3. ↑ Google Books snippet from Neurologisches Zentralblatt from 1917, p. 476.
  4. ↑ a b c Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945 . Vol II, 2, 1983, Lemma: Lowenstein, Otto. P. 752 f.
  5. ↑ Leo Peters: The life path of the Grunewald family and the situation of the Jews in Kaldenkirchen . In: Leo Peters (ed.): A Jewish childhood on the Lower Rhine: the memories of Julius Grunewald (1860 to 1929) . Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20356-6 , pp. 166 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ^ Article in the Kölner Stadtanzeiger (Region) on the 75th anniversary of November 19, 2001 (accessed November 2013)
  7. ^ LVR Clinic Bonn - History. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on November 22, 2015 ; Retrieved November 13, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.klinik-bonn.lvr.de
  8. ^ B. Wilhelm, H. Wilhelm: Irene Löwenfeld died on October 9, 2009 in New York . In: Clinical monthly sheets for ophthalmology . tape 226 , no. 11 , November 13, 2009, p. 944-944 , doi : 10.1055 / s-0028-1109879 .
  9. ^ Fion D. Bremner, Stephen E. Smith, The Pupil: Anatomy, Physiology, and Clinical Applications By Irene E. Loewenfeld . Review. In: Brain . tape 124 , no. 9 , January 9, 2001, p. 1881-1883 , doi : 10.1093 / brain / 124.9.1881 .
  10. ↑ Between Rhineland and Israel. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 27, 2013 ; Retrieved November 13, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rheinland-israel.de
personal data
SURNAME Löwenstein, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Loewenstein, Otto; Lowenstein, Otto (other spellings)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American neuropsychiatrist
DATE OF BIRTH May 7, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Osnabrück
DATE OF DEATH March 25, 1965
Place of death New York City