George Cheyne (physician)

George Cheyne (* 1671 in Auchencreive, Methlick, Aberdeenshire, † April 12, 1743 in Bath ) was a pioneering physician, forerunner of psychology, philosopher and mathematician. He was born in Scotland, but later practiced from 1702 as a physician in the health and spa town of Bath in South West England. Bath was one of the centers of social life. Cheyne has made ​​itself a name as a proponent of vegetarian diet that he propagated as a patient in yourself.

Life

After his studies of medicine in Edinburgh, he was a student there from Archibald Pitcairne 1701 he received the title of Doctor of Medicine of the University of Aberdeen moved to London and became in 1702 a member of the Royal Society.

Medical services

Ironically, in Bath, a center of social life at that time in England, succeeded Cheyne, to make its social moral considerations. Their health conclusions he was able to apply to himself not last. According to the style of the time he illustrated such personal applications and considerations in public, as he bowed himself to obesity. These instructions culminated in health recommendations of a retreat from the sensory overload of the everyday world, the abundance of pleasures, the restlessness of the cities. A salutary moderating function received the pastoral life, the outing, hunting, fishing and horse riding, physical exercises and the English Garden. There were milk and other natural cures modern diets. Cheyne found that a third of his patients suffered from nervousness. In 1733 he published his work on the English disease (English Malady ). He relied on Bernard Mandeville, whose treatise on the hypochondria and hysteria was published in 1711. The Cheynes merit was that he contributed to the social acceptance of mental illness, which he illustrated by common sociological and diäthetische models. Cheyne was in touch with the publicist Richard Blackmore, who had secured a > medical journalist < a reputation. A follower of his teachings was the author and publisher Samuel Richardson, letter wrong with the Cheyne. The main work is the Cheynes of the English disease, with which he pre-empted the corresponding attacks from abroad, describing this disorder as an expression of wealth and abundance. He had become < also a pioneer of the name > American Nervousness, which was later coined by George Miller Beard and thus pioneering the name neurasthenia. Cheyne can be counted among the early representatives of consultation psychiatry.

Other works of the author

(Selection)

• Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion, Containing the Elements of Natural Philosophy, and the proofs for Natural Religion, Arising from them. 1705
• An Essay on Regimen. 1740
• An Essay of Health and Long Life. London 1745 ( fernladbarer text )
• The Natural Method of Curing the Diseases of the human body, and the Disorders of the Mind attending on the body. ( Cheynes last work )