Rudolf Leubuscher (12 December 1822 – 23 October 1861) was a German physician and
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 ...
who was a native of Breslau.
He obtained his medical doctorate in 1844 with the dissertation, ''De indole hallucinationum in mania religiosa'',ADB: Leubuscher, Rudolf @
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie
''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, german: Universal German Biography) is one of the most important and comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language.
It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Aca ...
afterwards serving as an assistant to Heinrich Philipp August Damerow (1798-1866) at the newly constructed provincial mental institution in
Halle Halle may refer to:
Places Germany
* Halle (Saale), also called Halle an der Saale, a city in Saxony-Anhalt
** Halle (region), a former administrative region in Saxony-Anhalt
** Bezirk Halle, a former administrative division of East Germany
** Hall ...
. In 1848 he became habilitated at
Humboldt University of Berlin
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...
, and in 1855 was a director at the medical clinic in
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 ...
. He later returned to Berlin as a physician and associate professor at the university. He died in Berlin in 1861 at the age of 39.
Leubuscher is remembered for his political views, as well as for his work in medicine. He was a catalyst for
health reform
Health care reform is for the most part governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place. Health care reform typically attempts to:
* Broaden the population that receives health care coverage through either public sector insur ...
in Germany, and also a passionate advocate of social and political change. He argued that economic and social conditions were a major factor concerning health and disease, and believed that the health of the populace was a matter of social concern. With Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), he was co-founder of a weekly socio-political newspaper on medical reform called ''Medicinische Reform''. The publication of this newspaper was short-lived; it was only in existence from July 1848 to June 29, 1849.
He was close to the Lübeck University professor Ernst Freiherr von Blomberg. They both worked in the same fields of expertise and an abundant correspondence between them shows a remarkable kinship. Both published on
clinical lycanthropy
Clinical lycanthropy is a rare psychiatric syndrome that involves a delusion that the affected person can transform into, has transformed into, or is, an animal. Its name is associated with the mythical condition of lycanthropy, a supernatural ...
,
Renfield syndrome
R. M. Renfield is a fictional character who appears in Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel '' Dracula''.anthrozoologist and theologist, reportedly dedicated his (posthumously published) ''Ein seltener fall von Hydrocephalus'' to Leubuscher, although no mention of Leubuscher appears in the paper.
Literary works
Among his written works was a German translation of Louis-Florentin Calmeil's landmark work on the
history of psychiatry
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
, ''De la Folie'' (About the delusions). Leubuscher named his translation ''Der Wahnsinn in den vier letzten Jahrhunderten'' (On madness in the last four centuries). In 1852, he published the late
Benno Reinhardt
Benno Ernst Heinrich Reinhardt (14 May 1819 – 11 March 1852) was a German physician who worked as prosector at Charité hospital in Berlin. He is known for his contributions to pathology, especially as co-founder of the journal ''Virchows Archiv' ...
's pathological-anatomical studies. He also published an article on aboulia ('Über Abulie', Zeitschr. für Psychiat. 4, 562-578, 1847), listing a number of disorders of the will, such as "weak-willedness". Other literary works by Leubuscher include:
* ''Über Wehrwölfe und Thierverwandlungen im Mittelalter. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Psychologie'', Berlin 1850 - On
werewolves
In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely or ...
and animal transformations in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
. A contribution to the history of psychology.
* ''Über die Entstehung der Sinnestäuschung. Ein Beitrag zur Anthropologie'', Berlin 1852 - On the origin of illusion. A contribution to
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
.
* ''Die Pathologie und Therapie der Gehirnkrankheiten'', Berlin 1854 - The pathology and treatment of
brain disease
Central nervous system diseases, also known as central nervous system disorders, are a group of neurological disorders that affect the structure or function of the brain or spinal cord, which collectively form the central nervous system (CNS). Th ...
.
* ''Die Krankheiten des Nervensystems'',
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 ...
1860 - Diseases of the
nervous system
In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes th ...