Ludwig Meyer

Ludwig Meyer ( * December 27, 1827 in Bielefeld, † February 8, 1900 in Göttingen ) was a German psychiatrist and university lecturer. He reformed the psychiatry beings.

Career

As a baptized Jew Meyer began studying medicine at the Rheinische Friedrich- Wilhelms- University of Bonn, where he joined the fraternity Franconia joined. Since he had been involved with Gottfried Kinkel, Carl Schurz and Friedrich Spielhagen in the revolution of 1848/1849 and participated in the storming of the Siegburger armory, he was relegated after five months of pre-trial detention and punished by imprisonment. Covered by Rudolf Virchow, he was able to continue his studies in 1850 at the Julius- Maximilians- University of Würzburg and later at the Friedrich- Wilhelms- University of Berlin. 1852 PhD at the Charité for the MD, he became an assistant to Karl Wilhelm Ideler. He then worked in the institution Schwetz. In 1857 he was senior physician at Ideler. In the same year he received his habilitation. In 1858 he was senior physician at the General Hospital St. Georg in Hamburg. There he was hired to reorganize the treatment of the mentally ill. In 1864 he directed the state hospital Friedrich Berg one according to his plans. Between 1866 and 1900 he was Full Professor and Director of the Mental Health Institute in Göttingen. For the academic year 1884/85 he was elected Rector of the University of Göttingen. Meyer later ran as a National Liberal to the Reichstag ( German Empire ) and was a follower of Otto von Bismarck.

Services

Ludwig Meyer deserves the credit for 1858 in Hamburg supports the first in Germany John Conolly ( 1794-1866 ) and introduced its no- restraint principle in the psychiatric hospital to have. In this way, he had created the conditions to be Wilhelm Griesinger (1817-1868) closest friend in the fight for a scientific psychiatry, recognizes the physical ( neurological ) disease as a cause of mental disorders and therefore waives punishment and coercion. Thus, it is understandable that Meyer urged similar to Joseph Guislain (1797-1860) on the treatment bed, which gave the hospital psychiatric hospital character. Furthermore, Meyer continued to ensure that the opportunities for psychiatric hospitals be improved by here operated research and students were taught a claim that already William Battie (1703-1776) and Thomas Arnold (1742-1816) had raised. This requirement was related to the opinion Meyers superficial and necessary scientific research. The Institute in Göttingen was therefore founded " with the explicit precondition of teaching ". Together with Wilhelm Griesinger called Meyer the expansion of psychiatric outpatient clinics, to apply the new scientific approaches for the consultation psychiatry. He founded together with Griesinger the journal " Archives of Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases ". This was a declaration of war against the institution of psychiatry and the Heinrich Philipp August Damerow (1798-1866), edited with " General Journal of Psychiatry ".

Works

• The relations of the insane to the possessed and witches, 1861.