Wilhelm Griesinger  

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Wilhelm Griesinger (29 July 1817 - 26 October 1868) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist born in Stuttgart.

He studied under Johann Lukas Schönlein at the University of Zurich and physiologist François Magendie in Paris. After receiving his doctorate he practiced medicine in several locations, including Winnethal in Württemberg, a private practice in Stuttgart, the medical clinic in Tübingen and at the University of Kiel. In the early 1850s he went to Egypt to head the medical school in Cairo, and became a personal physician to Abbas I. During his stay in Egypt, he gained experience regarding tropical diseases, and as a result published Klinische und anatomische Beobachtungen über die Krankheiten von Aegypten (1854) and Infectionskrankheiten (1857).

In 1854 he returned to the University of Tübingen as a professor of clinical medicine, succeeding his friend Carl Wunderlich (1815-1877) as director of the Tübingen medical clinic. In 1859 Griesinger became head of an institution for mentally handicapped children in the small town of Mariaberg, and from 1860 participated in the planning of the Burghölzli Mental Hospital in Zurich. In 1865 he moved to Berlin and succeeded Moritz Heinrich Romberg as director at the university polyclinic. In Berlin he established two influential psychiatric journals; Medicinisch-psychologische Gesellschaft and the Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten. In 1868, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Griesinger is remembered for his reforms concerning the mentally ill and the asylum system. He believed in integration of the mentally ill into society, and proposed that short-term hospitalization be combined with close cooperation of natural support systems. He also provided valuable insights on the nature of psychopathic behavior. Today, the Wilhelm Griesinger Hospital in Berlin is named in his honor.

Associated eponyms

• Griesinger's sign: Erythema and edema over the mastoid process due to septic thrombosis of the mastoid emissary vein and thrombophlebitis of the sigmoid sinus.

Published Works

• Herr Ringseis und die naturhistorische Schule. (Johann Nepomuk von Ringseis and the Natural History School) Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde 1 (1842)
• Theorien und Thatsachen. (Theories and Facts) Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde 1 (1842).
• Über den Schmerz und über die Hyperämie. (Concerning Pain and Congestion) Archiv für Physiologische Heilkunde 1 (1842)
• Über psychische Reflexaktionen. Mit einem Blick auf das Wesen der psychischen Krankheiten. (Concerning Mental Reflex Actions. With a Glance at the Nature of Mental Illnesses) Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde 2, s. 76 (1843)
• Neue Beiträge zur Physiologie und Pathologie des Gehirns. (New Contributions to the Physiology and Pathology of the Brain) Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde (1844)
• Pathologie und Therapie der psychischen Krankheiten. (Pathology and treatment of Mental Diseases) Stuttgart: Krabbe, 1845. second edition- Braunschweig 1861
• Ueber Schwefeläther-Inhalationen. (Concerning Sulfur-ether Inhalation) Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde 6, ss. 348–350 (1847)
• Bemerkungen über das Irrenwesen in Württemberg. (Remarks about psychiatric care in Württemberg) Württemberg Medic. Correspondenzblatt. (1848/49)
• Klinische und anatomische Beobachtungen über die Krankheiten von Aegypten. (Clinical and Anatomical Observations on the Diseases of Egypt) Archiv für physiologische Heilkunde 13, ss. 528–575 (1854)
• Infectionskrankheiten. (Infectious Diseases); in Virchow's Handbuch der speciellen Pathologie und Therapie. Erlangen 1857.
• Zur Kenntnis der heutigen Psychiatrie in Deutschland. Eine Streitschrift gegen die Broschüre des Samitätsrats Dr. Laehr in Zehlendorf: "Fortschritt? – Rückschritt!". (To the Attention of Today's Psychiatry in Germany, A polemic against the brochure of Heinrich Laehr from Zehlendorf: "Progress? - Backwards!") Leipzig: Wigand, 1868.
• Über Irrenanstalten und deren Weiter-Entwicklung in Deutschland. (About Asylums and their further Development in Germany) Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten 1 (1868)
• Gesammelte Abhandlungen. (Collected Essays) two volumes. Berlin: Hirschwald, 1872.