David Ferdinand Koreff (1 February 1783 – 15 May 1851) was a German

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

who was a personal doctor of Staatskanzler

Karl August von Hardenberg Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg (31 May 1750, in Essenrode-Lehre – 26 November 1822, in Genoa) was a Prussian statesman and Prime Minister of Prussia. While during his late career he acquiesced to reactionary policies, earlier in his career ...

and occupied one of the two chairs for

animal magnetism Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force (''Lebensmagnetismus'') possessed by all livi ...

created in 1817 at the University of Berlin. A personal friend of

E.T.A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann; 24 January 1776 – 25 June 1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic and artist. Penrith Goff, "E.T.A. Hoffmann" in E ...

and a member of his literary club

The Serapion Brethren The Serapion Brethren (''Die Serapionsbrüder'') is the name of a literary and social circle, formed in Berlin in 1818 by the German romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann and several of his friends. The Serapion Brethren also is the title of a four-v ...

(Serapionsbrüder), Koreff authored a treatise “Über die Erscheinungen des Lebens und über die Gesetze, nach denen es im menschlichen Organismus sich offenbart” and a volume of lyric poetry "Lyrische Gedichte" (published in Paris in 1815). A year after Hoffmann's death in 1822, Koreff moved to Paris to become the most celebrated authority on

for the French literary world. His connections included

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

Alexandre Dumas, père Alexandre Dumas (, ; ; born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (), 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where ''Suffix (name)#Generational titles, '' is French language, French for 'father', to distinguish him from ...

Musset Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay (; 11 December 1810 – 2 May 1857) was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.His names are often reversed "Louis Charles Alfred de Musset": see "(Louis Charles) Alfred de Musset" (bio), Biography.com, 2007 ...

, Mérimée, Chateaubriand, Balzac,

Stendhal Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, ; ), was a 19th-century French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (''The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de P ...

Benjamin Constant Henri-Benjamin Constant de Rebecque (; 25 October 1767 – 8 December 1830), or simply Benjamin Constant, was a French people, Franco-Switzerland, Swiss political thinker, activist and writer on political theory and religion. A committed repub ...

and

Heinrich Heine Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (; born Harry Heine; 13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856) was a German poet, writer and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of '' Lied ...

Books about Koreff

*Nicole Edelman, Luis Montiel et Jean-Pierre Peter: ''Histoire sommaire de la maladie et du somnambulisme de Lady Lincoln.'' Paris, Ed.Tallandier, 2009. *Luis Montiel: "Secreto a voces. Una 'enfermedad extraordinaria' y su tratamiento en el París del siglo XIX." Amazon Books, 2021.

References

19th-century German physicians German medical writers 1783 births 1851 deaths Scholars from the Kingdom of Prussia {{Germany-med-bio-stub