Peter Willers Jessen (medical doctor)

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Peter Willers Jessen, around 1870

Peter Willers Jessen (born September 13, 1793 in Flensburg , † September 29, 1875 in Kiel ) was a German psychiatrist . From 1820 he headed the first psychiatric hospital in German-speaking countries in Schleswig . In 1845 he opened the Hornheim (Kiel) , Germany's first private psychiatric clinic. Together with Friedrich von Esmarch , on the basis of clinical studies in 1857, he was the first to suggest that syphilis was the cause of neurolues .

Life

Jessen came from a family of pastors and organists . His father Peter Willers was a bookseller in Flensburg and died when his son was 7 years old. Peter Jessen studied at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen , the Charité and the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel . In Kiel he was awarded Dr. med. PhD . In the Duchy of Schleswig , Carl Ferdinand Suadicani initiated the insane asylum on the Schleswig city field. It was built according to plans by Jean-Étienne Esquirol . Jessen was intended to be her doctor. He therefore visited similar institutions in England and spent four months in the Sonnenstein sanatorium , which at the time was the only psychiatric training facility in Germany.

Schleswig

He took office in Schleswig on October 1, 1820. For years he was the only doctor who looked after up to 300 patients. In addition, he devoted himself to anatomy and publications on psychiatric and neurological topics. The CAU appointed him titular professor in 1832 . He was probably aiming for the first chair for psychiatry at the CAU, especially since "the expansion of the Schleswig clinic would become superfluous with the construction of a second psychiatry in Kiel". In 1843 - at the time of the Schleswig-Holstein uprising - he became a member of the Corps Saxonia Kiel at the age of 50 (which was spent in the Schleswig-Holstein War ). Despite his achievement and academic recognition, Jessen got into increasingly unpleasant arguments with the administration above him; because she refused to make him a member of the clinic management. He therefore requested his dismissal in 1844 and resigned from office in August 1845. When he was released, he was given a waiting allowance of 1200 Reichstalers with the obligation to give lectures on psychological medicine as a private lecturer in Kiel . Julius Rüppell was his successor.

Although Jessen was still the only insane doctor in Schleswig and Holstein, he had no prospects: the only psychiatric clinic was in Schleswig; the CAU still did not have a chair in psychiatry; a doctor's office was out of the question. If he (at the age of 52) had sought his fortune “abroad” and left the duchies, the waiting allowance would have returned to the Crown of Denmark .

Kiel

Rooted in the country and known as far as Hamburg, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, he opened the third or fourth private psychiatric clinic in German-speaking countries near Kiel on October 1, 1845 . How he financed them with his modest means is unknown. In a fine play on words , he named the clinic after his Berlin teachers Ernst Horn and Ernst Ludwig Heim . At the 24th meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors in Kiel, he was one of the co-founders of a section for psychiatry .

Like Esquirol, Jessen introduced the informal treatment of the mentally ill. He lived among his patients . He advocated holistic therapy with diet and physical therapy , supplemented by work, education and teaching . He considered the social aspect to be decisive, because no sufferer needed so much "the patience and forbearance, the love and participation of those around him" as the mentally ill. He was friends with his colleague Carl Friedrich Flemming . He died shortly after his 82nd birthday in Hornheim. His son Peter Willers Jessen d. J. continued his father's work until 1898.

family

Jessen was married to Amalie Eccardt. The couple had a daughter and six sons, two of whom died early. One of the sons was the pedagogue Otto Jessen . Caroline Amalie (1824-1856), the couple's only daughter, married the Holstein lawyer and politician Theodor Lehmann .

Publications and lectures

  • De melancholia attonita . Dissertation inauguralis medica. Kiliae (Kiel): Mohr digitized Google Books
  • Presentation and further development of Bell's discoveries in the area of ​​the nervous system together with an investigation into the forces of psychic life and the functions of the human mind. Contributions to the knowledge of psychic life in healthy and sick states , 1831. ( digitized version )
  • Contributions to the knowledge of psychic life in healthy and sick states . First volume. Schleswig: Royal deaf-mute institute 1831 digitized ÖNB Vienna
  • Contributions to the doctrine of sanity , 1832.
  • Medical experience in the insane asylum near Schleswig , 1833.
  • Expert opinion on a dubious state of mind, together with general considerations about fixed ideas . Berlin 1836. ( BSB Munich = Google Books )
  • Attempt to scientifically justify psychology . Berlin 1855 ( Hathitrust = Google Books )
  • On the prejudices prevailing in relation to the mentally and emotionally ill . Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie 4 (1847), pp. 1-8.
  • with Friedrich von Esmarch : Syphilis and mental disorder. In: General journal for psychiatry. Volume 14, 1857, pp. 20-26.
  • The training of the mediciners . Yearbooks for regional studies / Society for Schleswig-Holstein-Lauenburg History 2.1859, pp. 361–368 SUB Hamburg
  • The arson in affects and mental disorders. A contribution to judicial medicine for lawyers and doctors . Kiel: Homann, 1860. Harvard = Google Books ; Turin University Library ; [BSB Munich] = Google Books , Archive.org
  • Templates for the fourth meeting of German psychiatrists . General journal for psychiatry and forensic medicine: ed. by Germany's psychiatrists. 20.1863, supplement booklet 2 digitized ZB Med
  • Loss and disturbance of speech . Hanover 1865.
  • About the relationship between thinking and speaking . Hanover 1865.
  • Theses on forensic psychiatry . Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie 22 (1865), p. 355.
  • Abdominal typhus in the Altona hospital in the epidemic of 1868, 1869 . 1869
  • About sanity. Memorandum on the draft of a penal code for the North German Confederation, Section IV, § 46 and 47 , 1870. GoogleBooks , SBB Berlin
  • Physiology of human thought , Hanover: Cohen & Risch 1872. Hathitrust Columbia , Michigan = Google Books , National Library of the Netherlands , ÖNB = Google Books

Awards

  • Dr. phil. hc from the University of Kiel on the 50th anniversary of his doctorate (1870).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SHZ (2011)
  2. ↑ Hans Bangen: History of the drug therapy of schizophrenia. Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-927408-82-4 page 32
  3. ↑ The album of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel 1665–1865
  4. ↑ Dissertation: De digitalis purpureae viribus usuque medico
  5. ↑ a b c d P. Hamann, 1980
  6. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 77 , 35
  7. ^ P. Willers Jessen: Das Asyl Hornheim, the authorities and the audience . 1862
  8. ^ Heinrich Schipperges :  Jessen, Peter. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 423 f. ( Digitized version ).
  9. ↑ GoogleBooks
personal data
SURNAME Jessen, Peter Willers
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German psychiatrist
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1793
PLACE OF BIRTH Flensburg
DATE OF DEATH September 29, 1875
Place of death Kiel