35 Facts About Emil Kraepelin

Emil Kraepelin's theories dominated psychiatry at the start of the 20th century and, despite the later psychodynamic influence of Sigmund Freud and his disciples, enjoyed a revival at century's end.

Emil Kraepelin's textbooks do not contain detailed case histories of individuals but mosaic-like compilations of typical statements and behaviors from patients with a specific diagnosis.

Emil Kraepelin, whose father, Karl Wilhelm, was a former opera singer, music teacher, and later successful story teller, was born in 1856 in Neustrelitz, in the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in Germany.

Emil Kraepelin was first introduced to biology by his brother Karl, 10 years older and, later, the director of the Zoological Museum of Hamburg.

Emil Kraepelin began his medical studies in 1874 at the University of Leipzig and completed them at the University of Wurzburg.

Emil Kraepelin would be a disciple of Wundt and had a lifelong interest in experimental psychology based on his theories.

Emil Kraepelin completed his habilitation thesis - major postdoc publication and process - at Leipzig; it was entitled "The Place of Psychology in Psychiatry".

Emil Kraepelin called for research into the physical causes of mental illness, and started to establish the foundations of the modern classification system for mental disorders.

Emil Kraepelin proposed that by studying case histories and identifying specific disorders, the progression of mental illness could be predicted, after taking into account individual differences in personality and patient age at the onset of disease.

In 1903, Emil Kraepelin moved to Munich to become Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Munich.

Emil Kraepelin spoke out against the barbarous treatment that was prevalent in the psychiatric asylums of the time, and crusaded against alcohol, capital punishment and the imprisonment rather than treatment of the insane.

Emil Kraepelin firmly rejected the assumption of natural difference in relation to homosexuality, which he regarded as a vice caused by masturbation.

Emil Kraepelin's work legitimized the persecution and inhumane treatment of gay people in Nazi Germany.

Emil Kraepelin retired from teaching at the age of 66, spending his remaining years establishing the institute.

Emil Kraepelin announced that he had found a new way of looking at mental illness, referring to the traditional view as "symptomatic" and to his view as "clinical".

Emil Kraepelin is specifically credited with the classification of what was previously considered to be a unitary concept of psychosis, into two distinct forms :.

Emil Kraepelin reported a pattern to the course and outcome of these conditions.

Emil Kraepelin believed that schizophrenia had a deteriorating course in which mental function continuously declines, while manic-depressive patients experienced a course of illness which was intermittent, where patients were relatively symptom-free during the intervals which separate acute episodes.

Emil Kraepelin devoted very few pages to his speculations about the etiology of his two major insanities, dementia praecox and manic-depressive insanity.

Emil Kraepelin had no evidence or explanation suggesting a congenital cause, and his assumption therefore appears to have been simple "biologism".

Emil Kraepelin's assumption of a moral defect rather than a positive drive towards crime has been questioned, as it implies that the moral sense is somehow inborn and unvarying, yet it was known to vary by time and place, and Emil Kraepelin never considered that the moral sense might just be different.

The issues would today mainly be considered under the category of personality disorders, or in terms of Emil Kraepelin's focus on psychopathy.

Emil Kraepelin had referred to psychopathic conditions in his 1896 edition, including compulsive insanity, impulsive insanity, homosexuality, and mood disturbances.

Emil Kraepelin postulated that there is a specific brain or other biological pathology underlying each of the major psychiatric disorders.

Emil Kraepelin was confident that it would someday be possible to identify the pathological basis of each of the major psychiatric disorders.

Emil Kraepelin was a strong and influential proponent of eugenics and racial hygiene.

Emil Kraepelin's publications included a focus on alcoholism, crime, degeneration and hysteria.

Emil Kraepelin was convinced that such institutions as the education system and the welfare state, because of their trend to break the processes of natural selection, undermined the Germans' biological "struggle for survival".

Emil Kraepelin was concerned to preserve and enhance the German people, the Volk, in the sense of nation or race.

Emil Kraepelin appears to have held Lamarckian concepts of evolution, such that cultural deterioration could be inherited.

Emil Kraepelin was a strong ally and promoter of the work of fellow psychiatrist Ernst Rudin to clarify the mechanisms of genetic inheritance as to make a so-called "empirical genetic prognosis".

Emil Kraepelin wrote that "the number of idiots, epileptics, psychopaths, criminals, prostitutes, and tramps who descend from alcoholic and syphilitic parents, and who transfer their inferiority to their offspring, is incalculable".

Emil Kraepelin's contributions were to a large extent marginalized throughout a good part of the 20th century during the success of Freudian etiological theories.

Emil Kraepelin has been described as a "scientific manager" and political operator, who developed a large-scale, clinically oriented, epidemiological research programme.

Emil Kraepelin wrote in a knapp und klar style that made his books useful tools for physicians.