Wilhelm Alter senior

Wilhelm Alter (born May 14, 1843 in Prauß , Province of Silesia , † January 14, 1918 ) was a German psychiatrist . He worked as the director of the Silesian mental hospital in Brieg and Leubus . He did not appear scientifically or literarily.

Life

The son of one of Sweden derived village priest graduated from Mary Magdalene School in Breslau and studied at the University of Medicine. After the untimely death of his father, he financed his school education and studies himself, including as assistant to the internist Hermann Lebert . During his studies in 1863 he became a member of the Raczek fraternity in Breslau . As a volunteer doctor, he took part in the German War in 1866 . In 1867 he was the first doctor to do his doctorate in Breslau with a German-language dissertation on the causes of jaundice in phosphorus poisoning .

On July 24, 1868, Alter joined the mental hospital in Leubus, headed by Moritz Martini , as a trainee doctor. On January 1, 1869, he was employed there as the third doctor. In 1871 he took over the management of the insane care institution in Brieg. At that time he was the only doctor responsible for around 200 patients. He carried out reforms, for example by introducing scheduled occupational therapy for all sick people in 1875 . To make a living, he also had an extensive medical practice. It was not until 1878 that he took over the management of the Brieg institution. In the institution buildings, which had been built as a medieval hospital of a monastery , he had extensive renovations carried out and new buildings built to adapt to psychiatric needs. In 1882 he also established an agricultural colony.

On July 4, 1884, Alter succeeded Wilhelm Jung as director of the Irren-Heil-Anstalt in Leubus. The employees there included Emil Kraepelin (1885/85) and Clemens Neisser (from 1887 to 1901). At Neisser's instigation, Alter introduced bed treatment in Leubus in the second half of the 1880s . Under his aegis, an agricultural colony and a new building for 1,000 sick people were also built in Leubus. After 1900, Alter in Leubus relied on physical therapy in the form of bath treatments and outdoor treatments

In 1902 he was appointed to the Secret Medical Council. On October 1st, Alter retired and moved to Wroclaw.

A son, Wilhelm Friedrich Karl Alter , born in 1875 , became director of Lippe's Lindenhaus sanatorium and nursing home near Lemgo and later director of the academic hospitals in Düsseldorf .

literature

• W. Alter: Wilhelm Alter. 1843-1918 . In: Theodor Kirchhoff (ed.), Deutsche Irrenärzte , Vol. 2, Springer, Berlin 1924, pp. 205–207.
• Holger Steinberg: The Silesian Provincial Insane Asylum Leubus in the 19th century with special consideration of the work of Emil Kraepelin. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 21, 2002, pp. 533-553; here p. 539 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hugo Böttger (ed.): Directory of the old fraternity members according to the status of the winter semester 1911/12. Berlin 1912, p. 4.