Carl Wigand Maximilian Jacobi (10 April 1775 – 18 May 1858) was a German

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

Biography

He was born in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

, the son of

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (; 25 January 1743 – 10 March 1819) was an influential German philosopher, literary figure, and socialite. He is notable for popularizing nihilism, a term coined by Obereit in 1787, and promoting it as the prime faul ...

. He attended the universities of

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

, and

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, and for a period of time worked as a hospital aide in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. Later he became director of a mental hospital at

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...

, and beginning in 1816 was a Prussian ''Medizinalrat'' (medical officer). In 1825 he was the first director at the

Siegburg Siegburg (i.e. ''fort on the Sieg river''; Ripuarian: ''Sieburch'') is a city in the district of Rhein-Sieg-Kreis in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the banks of the rivers Sieg and Agger, 10 kilometres from the former seat of ...

lunatic asylum, located north of

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

. One of his better known assistants at Siegburg was

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 ...

. Jacobi was a prominent member of the somatic school of psychiatry in Germany, believing that mental disorders were largely due to organic factors. His views on psychiatry were in direct contrast to those of

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

professor

Johann Christian August Heinroth Johann Christian August Heinroth (17 January 1773 – 26 October 1843) was a German physician who was the first to use the term psychosomatic A somatic symptom disorder, formerly known as a somatoform disorder,(2013)

, a contemporary of Jacobi, who based psychiatry from a "spiritualistic" standpoint. Jacobi was influenced by the work of

Philippe Pinel Philippe Pinel (; 20 April 1745 – 25 October 1826) was a French physician, precursor of psychiatry and incidentally a zoologist. He was instrumental in the development of a more humane psychological approach to the custody and care of ps ...

and

William Tuke William Tuke (24 March 1732 – 6 December 1822), an English tradesman, philanthropist and Quaker, earned fame for promoting more humane custody and care for people with mental disorders, using what he called gentler methods that came to be k ...

regarding a "non-restraint policy" for patients, and tried to introduce this reform in Germany. On the 50th anniversary of his doctorate in 1857, a festival was held in his honor, attended by distinguished men from England and France as well as from every part of Germany. At this festival, an association was organized called the Jacobi foundation, for the improvement of physicians, officers, nurses, and attendants in the care of the insane. Jacobi died on May 18, 1858 in

Writings

He was the author of several treatises concerning treatment of the mentally ill, among them a work on “Construction and Management of Lunatic Hospitals” (1834). He contributed numerous articles to the journal ''Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie''. With Christian Friedrich Nasse, he was co-founder of ''Zeitschrift für Heilung und Beurtheilung krankhafter Seelenstörungen'', a journal dealing with the analysis and treatment of mental disorders.

Notes

References

* * James Vance
Mental Diseases; a Public Health Problem
Badger, 1922. {{DEFAULTSORT:Jacobi, Carl Wigand Maximilian 1775 births 1858 deaths People from Düsseldorf German psychiatrists Physicians from North Rhine-Westphalia

Biography

Writings

See also

Notes

References