Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1284

JOHANN CHRISTIAN AUGUST HEINROTH (1773-1843) Lehrbuch der Störungen des Seelenlebens. Bei Fr. Chr. Wilh. Vogel 1818 Vol. I: xii, 396 pp., fold. table; Vol. II: vi, 385 [1] pp. 20.2 cm.

A pupil and disciple of Pinel, Heinroth was the first to urge reform in German mental institutions. Like many of his fellow German psychiatrists at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Heinroth was deeply influenced by Lutheran thought and tradition. As a result, his psychiatric ideas are couched in theological terminology and are not always clear and easy to understand. Nevertheless, his acknowledged leadership of the spiritual school of psychiatry in Germany resulted in his being given a special chair of psychological medicine at Leipzig in 1811. In this his most important work, Heinroth expresses his basic ideas and philosophy of mental illness. He believed that sin was the cause of mental disturbances; today we would call it a sense of guilt. Heinroth divided his classification of psychological processes into those affecting the feelings or instincts, the understanding or intellect, and the will or conscience.

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 4926; Waller 4224; Wellcome III, p. 235