Somatic school may refer to those in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who argued for a biological (as opposed to psychological)
etiology
Etiology (pronounced ; alternatively: aetiology or ætiology) is the study of causation or origination. The word is derived from the Greek (''aitiología'') "giving a reason for" (, ''aitía'', "cause"); and ('' -logía''). More completely, e ...
of insanity; or it may refer to a group of nineteenth-century German psychiatrists, including
Carl Jacobi,
Christian Friedrich Nasse and
Carl Friedrich Flemming
Carl Friedrich Flemming (27 December 1799 – 27 January 1880) was a German psychiatrist born in Jüterbog. He was the father of cellular biology, cellular biologist Walther Flemming (1843-1905).
After receiving his medical doctorate from Berlin, ...
, who taught that insanity is a symptom of biological diseases ''located outside the brain'', particularly diseases of the abdominal and thoracic viscera (akin to the delirium caused by many acute biological illnesses). This latter German school opposed the "physiological school" represented in Germany by
Wilhelm Roser
Wilhelm Roser (26 March 1817 – 16 December 1888) was a German surgeon and ophthalmologist. He was born in Stuttgart and died in Marburg.
In 1839 he received his medical doctorate from the University of Tübingen, and afterwards continued his ed ...
,
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 ...
and
Carl Wunderlich, who insisted on there being a brain
lesion
A lesion is any damage or abnormal change in the tissue of an organism, usually caused by disease or trauma. ''Lesion'' is derived from the Latin "injury". Lesions may occur in plants as well as animals.
Types
There is no designated classifi ...
underlying every case of insanity, even if in some instances that lesion is the product of a pre-existing, extra-cerebral biological illness
and the
psychical school of
Johann Heinroth and others, who asserted that all insanity is the product of moral or psychological weakness and rejected any notion of a physical pathological cause.
References
{{Psychiatry
History of psychiatry
Psychological schools