The ''Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik Zürich'' (Psychiatric University Hospital Zürich) is a
psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...
in Switzerland. As a
research hospital
A university hospital is an institution which combines the services of a hospital with the education of medical students and with medical research. These hospitals are typically affiliated with a medical school or university. The following is a l ...
, it is associated with the
University of Zürich
The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...
. It is also called Burghölzli, after the wooded hill in the district of Riesbach in southeastern
Zürich
Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...
where it is located.
History
Before the construction of dedicated state-run institutions, most people with mental illnesses and disabilities were housed privately. A "counting of the insane" () in 1851 found that less than 10 percent of the 1281 individuals identified in the canton of Zurich were in the care of hospitals, most of which lacked dedicated psychiatric wards. In 1817, the city of Zürich had established such a ward in its "Old Hospital" () in the centre of the
old town
In a city or town, the old town is its historic or original core. Although the city is usually larger in its present form, many cities have redesignated this part of the city to commemorate its origins after thorough renovations. There are ma ...
. Initially, it provided 24 cells for mentally ill individuals. In the 1840s, the entire facility was converted to exclusively house chronically and mentally ill patients. The conditions in the Old Hospital were the subject of frequent criticism, which catalysed proposals for the construction of new asylums. By 1863, plans for a new asylum in the area had been completed. In 1864, the cantonal parliament voted to begin construction of the facility.
This expansion of psychiatric care came at a time during which public discourse, both in Switzerland and in other European countries, frequently framed the availability of inpatient care for the mentally ill as an indicator of societal progress.
Wilhelm Griesinger
Wilhelm Griesinger (29 July 1817 – 26 October 1868) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist born in Stuttgart.
Life and career
He studied under Johann Lukas Schönlein at the University of Zurich and physiologist François Magendie in Pa ...
was instrumental in the planning of the new asylum. Although he died before the building was established in 1870, he is considered the founder of the Burghölzli. From 1870 until 1879, the hospital had three directors,
Bernhard von Gudden
Johann Bernhard Aloys von Gudden (7 June 1824 – 13 June 1886) was a German neuroanatomist and psychiatrist born in Kleve.
Career
In 1848, von Gudden earned his doctorate from the University of Halle and became an intern at the asylum in Siegbu ...
,
Gustav Huguenin
Gustav Huguenin (17 July 1840 – 6 February 1920) was a Swiss internist and pathologist who was a native of Krauchthal.
Biography
He studied medicine at the Universities of University of Zürich, Zürich, Charles University in Prague, Prague, ...
and
Eduard Hitzig
Eduard Hitzig (6 February 1838 – 20 August 1907) was a German neurologist and neuropsychiatrist of Jewish ancestryAndrew P. Wickens, ''A History of the Brain: From Stone Age Surgery to Modern Neuroscience'', Psychology Press (2014), p. 226 b ...
. All three men focused on
neuropsychiatry
Neuropsychiatry or Organic Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with psychiatry as it relates to neurology, in an effort to understand and attribute behavior to the interaction of neurobiology and social psychology factors. Within neurop ...
,
with brain
pathology
Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in ...
and
physiology
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
being the general focus of their research.
Auguste-Henri Forel was the fourth director of Burghölzli, and spent nearly twenty years at the helm. Forel conducted
hypnosis
Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...
experiments on both patients and staff, as well as teaching the method to his students. A staunch advocate of
eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
, he conducted
sterilization procedures at the clinic during his tenure. While the cited
indications at the time were of a therapeutic nature, he later wrote that this had been a "pretense", and that the only true purpose of these procedures had been a social one.
[
] Forced sterilizations of mentally ill patients would continue under his successors.
In 1898
Eugen Bleuler
Paul Eugen Bleuler (; ; 30 April 1857 – 15 July 1939) was a Swiss psychiatrist and humanist most notable for his contributions to the understanding of mental illness. He coined several psychiatric terms including "schizophrenia", "schizoid", ...
became director of the Burghölzli, where he would remain until 1927. The "Bleuler era" is considered the most illustrious period at the hospital, largely due to the advent of
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
, usage of Freudian psychiatric theories, and the creative work of Bleuler's assistant,
Carl Gustav Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
. Bleuler was followed as director by Hans-Wolfgang Maier and afterwards by his son
Manfred Bleuler.
In addition to Jung, many renowned psychiatrists spent part of their career at the Burghölzli, including
Karl Abraham
Karl Abraham (; 3 May 1877 – 25 December 1925) was an influential German psychoanalyst, and a collaborator of Sigmund Freud, who called him his 'best pupil'.
Life
Abraham was born in Bremen, Germany. His parents were Nathan Abraham, a Jewish ...
,
Ludwig Binswanger
Ludwig Binswanger (; ; 13 April 1881 – 5 February 1966) was a Swiss psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of existential psychology. His parents were Robert Johann Binswanger (1850–1910) and Bertha Hasenclever (1847–1896). Robert's Ger ...
,
Eugène Minkowski
Eugène (Eugeniusz) Minkowski (; 17 April 1885 – 17 November 1972) was a French psychiatrist of Jewish Polish origin, known for his incorporation of phenomenology into psychopathology and for exploring the notion of "lived time". A student of ...
,
Hermann Rorschach
Hermann Rorschach (; 8 November 1884 – 2 April 1922) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His education in art helped to spur the development of a set of inkblots that were used experimentally to measure various unconscious parts of the s ...
,
Franz Riklin
Franz Beda Riklin (22 April 1878, in St. Gallen – 4 December 1938, in Küsnacht) was a Swiss psychiatrist.
Early in his career, Franz Riklin worked at the Burghölzli Hospital in Zurich under Eugen Bleuler (b.1857–d.1939), and studied ex ...
,
Constantin von Monakow
Constantin von Monakow (4 November 1853 – 19 October 1930) was a Russian-Swiss neuropathologist who was a native of Bobretsovo in the Vologda Governorate.
He studied at the University of Zurich while working as an assistant at the Burghölzli I ...
, Eugen Bleuler,
Ernst Rüdin
Ernst Rüdin (19 April 1874 – 22 October 1952) was a Swiss-born German psychiatrist, geneticist, eugenicist and Nazi, rising to prominence under Emil Kraepelin and assuming the directorship at the German Institute for Psychiatric Rese ...
,
Adolf Meyer,
Abraham Brill
Abraham Arden Brill (October 12, 1874 – March 2, 1948) was an Austrian-born psychiatrist who spent almost his entire adult life in the United States. He was the first psychoanalyst to practice in the United States and the first translator of S ...
and
Emil Oberholzer
Emil Oberholzer (December 24, 1883 – May 4, 1958) was a Swiss-American psychiatrist. He was a born in Zweibrücken, Germany, and died in New York City.
Beginning in 1908, he received psychiatric training under Eugen Bleuler (1857–1939) in Zur ...
.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
's son,
Eduard Einstein was a patient at Burghölzli. Today the Burghölzli is an important center for psychiatric research and the treatment of mental illness. The controversial
Ewen Cameron studied at Burghölzli in the late 1920s.
On March 6, 1971, a fire broke out at the clinic; 28 elderly male patients died from suffocation. There were bars on the windows, frustrating the attempts of rescuers to save lives.
["28 Elderly Men Die in Fire at Clinic in Zurich Suburb," ''New York Times'', March 7, 1971, p. 8.]
Trivia
The fictitious 2007 Swiss mystery film ''
Marmorera
Marmorera (german: Marmels) is a village and former municipality in the Sursés in the district of Albula in the canton of Graubünden in Switzerland. On 1 January 2016 the former municipalities of Bivio, Cunter, Marmorera, Mulegns, Riom-Parson ...
'' was filmed among others,
at the ''Bürghölzli'' sanatory in the
Weinegg
Weinegg is a quarter in District 8 of Zürich.
Geography and demographics
Weinegg was formerly a part of Riesbach municipality, which was incorporated into Zürich in 1893. The quarter has a population of 4,951 distributed on an area of 1.72 km ...
district of Zürich, on the river
Limmat
The Limmat is a river in Switzerland. The river commences at the outfall of Lake Zurich, in the southern part of the city of Zurich. From Zurich it flows in a northwesterly direction, after 35 km reaching the river Aare. The confluenc ...
near
Technopark Zürich
Technopark Zürich is a research park known as technopark based in the municipality of Zürich in the Canton of Zürich in Switzerland.
History
Technopark Zürich was established in 1993. The founders planned to provide rooms, offices and ot ...
, at the
Limmatquai
''Limmatquai'' is a street in the Swiss city of Zürich. It is named after the Limmat, and it follows the right-hand (eastern) bank of that river for about through the '' Altstadt'', or historical core, of the city. The street was once important ...
promenade, and on the
Münsterbrücke river crossing towards
Münsterhof
Münsterhof (literally: Fraumünster abbey courtyard) is a town square situated in the Lindenhof quarter in the historical center of Zürich, Switzerland. Münsterhof is the largest town square within the ''Altstadt'' (old town) of Zürich, and i ...
.
References
* ''This article is based on a translation of an article from the French Wikipedia.''
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burgholzli
Psychiatric hospitals in Switzerland
Hospitals established in 1870
Buildings and structures in Zürich
District 8 of Zürich