Emil Kraepelin's years at Dorpat as professor of psychiatry in nineteenth-century Russia

Steinberg, Holger; Angermeyer, Matthias C.

doi:10.1177/0957154x0101204703

Cited by 16 publications

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“…In the first edition of his textbook of psychiatry, a short compendium for students written in Leipzig, he introduced "ancillary sciences and methods of psychiatric research": "Experimental psychology is the science that provides our methods. It teaches us to study initially with the help of an experiment the simplest psychological processes in their (Steinberg and Angermeyer 2001); however, his neuropsychological approach was too far ahead of his time and he could not draw conclusions in terms of existing ideas and models (Hildebrandt 1993).…”

Section: Methodological Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Supported by the neurologist Wilhelm Erb (1840-1921), he completed his habilitation within 4 months, even without the professorial dissertation that most candidates were (and still are) expected to write for this purpose. Erb reviewed the submitted papers and came to the conclusion that these are "indeed essentially literary works", written in "a somewhat lengthy style and not free of tedious repetitions"; however, it fulfilled academic standards of the time and even Flechsig's intervention could not stop Kraepelin's habilitation (for details see Steinberg 2001). …”

Section: Kraepelin Wundt and Flechsigmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The results and theoretical reflections are published in three long papers (Kraepelin 1881(Kraepelin /1882(Kraepelin , 1882a(Kraepelin , 1882(Kraepelin /1883 and summarised in a monograph (Kraepelin 1892a) that marks the end of this period. We will use quotations from these publications and from the first edition of his textbook (Kraepelin 1883), his posthumously published autobiography (Kraepelin 1983), recently published correspondences (Kraepelin 2002;Wundt and Kraepelin 2002) and relevant archive materials (first published in Steinberg 2001;Steinberg and Müller 2005) to illustrate the historical context of Kraepelin's pharmacological research. In retrospect, this research stands as an early milestone in the history of psychopharmacology.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast to most contemporary psychiatrists, Kraepelin had a formal training in experimental psychology. In 1882-1883 he worked as a postdoc with Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920, professor of philosophy at the University of Leipzig and head of the first laboratory of experimental psychology (Boring 1965;Steinberg 2001). Kraepelin investigated the effects of psychoactive drugs on attention, memory and language using innovative tasks and reaction time measurements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The origin of pharmacopsychology: Emil Kraepelin’s experiments in Leipzig, Dorpat and Heidelberg (1882–1892)

2005

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This historical review shows that the early history of cognitive psychopharmacology, originally labelled as "pharmacopsychology", is closely linked to developments in experimental psychology and academic psychiatry. At the beginning of his scientific career, the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) joined Wilhelm Wundt's laboratory of experimental psychology at the University of Leipzig. Although Kraepelin was fired from his clinical position at the university's psychiatric hospital, he completed his habilitation, the German equivalent of Ph.D., and started a series of pharmacological investigations in healthy volunteers using common recreational drugs (alcohol, coffee, tea) or medicinal products (amyl nitrite, chloral hydrate, chloroform, ethyl ether, morphine, paraldehyde) together with innovative psychological tasks. This paper reviews Kraepelin's pharmacopsychological research and his methodological innovations, providing translations, for the first time, from original papers, his monograph On the Modulation of Simple Psychological Processes by Some Medicines and from other sources. Kraepelin's contributions to psychopharmacology and clinical neuropsychology were far ahead of his time and his conceptual achievements have been largely neglected by modern psychiatry and cognitive neuroscience.

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Section: Methodological Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Kraepelin Wundt and Flechsigmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The origin of pharmacopsychology: Emil Kraepelin’s experiments in Leipzig, Dorpat and Heidelberg (1882–1892)

2005

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“…The founder of modern psychiatry he became professor of psychiatry at Dorpat University in 1886 when he was 30 years old (Steinberg & Angermeyer, 2001). It was Wundt who suggested to his favourite student about medical vocation instead of the uncertainties of being a psychologist.…”

Section: Emil Kraepelin and Experimental Psychologymentioning

confidence: 98%

History of experimental psychology from an Estonian perspective

Allik

2006

Psychological Research

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A short review of the development of experimental psychology from an Estonian perspective is presented. The first rector after the reopening of the University of Dorpat (Tartu) in 1802, Georg Friedrich Parrot (1767-1852) was interested in optical phenomena which he attempted to explain by introducing the concept of unconscious inferences, anticipating a similar theory proposed by Herman von Helmholtz 20 years later. One of the next rectors, Alfred Wilhelm Volkmann (1800-1878) was regarded by Edwin Boring as one of the founding fathers of the experimental psychology. Georg Wilhelm Struve (1793-1864) played an essential part in solving the problem of personal equations. Arthur Joachim von Oettingen (1836-1920) developed a theory of music harmony, which stimulated his student Wilhelm Friedrich Ostwald (1853-1932) to study colour harmony. Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), the founder of modern psychiatry, is by far the most important experimental psychologist who has worked in Estonia. His successor Wladimir von Tchisch (1855-1922), another student of Wilhelm Wundt, continued Kraepelin's work in experimental psychology. The lives of Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967), who was born in Reval (Tallinn), and Oswald Külpe (1862-1915), who graduated from the University of Dorpat, extended the link between the history of experimental psychology and Estonia. Karl Gustav Girgensohn (1875-1925), the founder of the Dorpat School of the psychology of religion, stretched the use of experimental methods to the study of religious experience.

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The evolution of Kraepelin's nosological principles

Heckers

Kendler

2020

World Psychiatry

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Emil Kraepelin developed a new psychiatric nosology in the eight editions of his textbook. Previous papers have explored his construction of particular diagnoses, including dementia praecox and manic‐depressive insanity. Here we are providing a close reading of his introductory textbook chapter, that presents his general principles of nosology. We identify three phases: 1) editions 1‐4, in which he describes nosological principles in search of data; 2) editions 5‐7, in which he declares the mature version of his nosological principles and develops new disease categories; 3) edition 8, in which he qualifies his nosological claims and allows for greater differentiation of psychiatric disorders. We propose that Kraepelin's nosology is grounded in three principles. First, psychiatry, like other sciences, deals with natural phenomena. Second, mental states cannot be reduced to neural states, but science will progress and will, ultimately, reveal how nature creates abnormal mental states and behavior. Third, there is a hierarchy of validators of psychiatric diagnoses, with the careful study of clinical features (signs, symptoms and course) being more important than neuropathologic and etiological studies. These three principles emerged over the course of the eight editions of Kraepelin's textbook and were informed by his own research and by available scientific methods. His scientific views are still relevant today: they have generated and, at the same time, constrained our current psychiatric nosology.

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Emil Kraepelin's years at Dorpat as professor of psychiatry in nineteenth-century Russia

Cited by 16 publications

References 5 publications

The origin of pharmacopsychology: Emil Kraepelin’s experiments in Leipzig, Dorpat and Heidelberg (1882–1892)

The origin of pharmacopsychology: Emil Kraepelin’s experiments in Leipzig, Dorpat and Heidelberg (1882–1892)

History of experimental psychology from an Estonian perspective

The evolution of Kraepelin's nosological principles

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