Editing Richard von Krafft-Ebing (section)

== Life and work ==
[[File:Krafft ebing uniwien.jpg|thumb|Richard von Krafft-Ebing, bust by [[Richard Kauffungen]], courtyard of the [[University of Vienna]]]]

=== Background and education ===
[[File:Krafft-Ebingsches Familienwappen.jpg|thumb|Krafft-Ebing family coat of arms]]
Richard von Krafft-Ebing was born as the eldest of five children to Friedrich Karl Konrad Christoph von Krafft-Ebing, a high-ranking official in the Grand Duchy of Baden.

His mother Klara Antonia Carolina was a daughter of the renowned Heidelberg legal scholar and defense attorney [[Carl Joseph Anton Mittermaier]]. His paternal lineage was ennobled in the year 1770 by Empress [[Maria Theresia]] and elevated to the [[Baron|Baronial]] status in 1805 by Emperor [[Franz II]] (as Franz I, Emperor of Austria).

Due to his father's professional relocation, the family moved initially to various locations in [[Baden (region)|Baden]] and eventually to [[Heidelberg]]. In Heidelberg, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, after passing his [[university entrance exam]] at [[Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg]], where his grandfather taught law, turned to the study of medicine. He passed the state examination in 1863 "''[[summa cum laude]]''" with his work on "Sensory Delusions" and earned his Doctorate in Medicine. During his studies, he became a member of ''[[Burschenschaft Frankonia Heidelberg]]'' in the winter semester of 1858/59.<ref>''Membership Directory of Burschenschaft Frankonia to Heidelberg. 1956–1966.'' Heidelberg 1966, p. 9.</ref>

=== Early medical career ===
Recovery from a bout of typhoid led him to spend a summer in [[Zürich]], where he became acquainted with [[Wilhelm Griesinger]]'s [[anatomy|brain anatomical]] studies. He observed practices in [[Vienna]], [[Prague]], and [[Berlin]].

In the subsequent years from 1864 to 1868, he worked as an assistant at the Baden mental hospital [[Illenau]]—chiefly under [[Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Roller|Christian Roller]] and [[Karl Hergt]]—gaining practical experience in the extensive field of treating and caring for the mentally ill and those suffering from neurological disorders. Since that time, he maintained a lifelong friendship with his colleague [[Heinrich Schüle]] (1840–1916), who later became the director of this institution (from 1890).

In 1868, von Krafft-Ebing set up his own practice as a neurologist in [[Baden-Baden]]. At the beginning of his career, he looked after his younger, severely ill brother Friedrich for several months. After losing the battle for his brother's life, who was just 24, a restorative and art-focused journey, coupled with visits to psychiatric and neurological institutions, took him several weeks through southern Europe. During the [[Franco-Prussian War]] (1870/71), he first served as a field doctor with the rank of captain in the [[Baden Army|Baden Division]] and was then transferred as a hospital doctor to the [[Fortress Rastatt]]. His observations, especially regarding patients suffering from [[typhus]], were compiled in a special treatise. After the end of the war, he was put in charge of the [[Electrotherapy|electrotherapeutic]] station in Baden-Baden, mainly for the neurological follow-up treatment of wounded soldiers.

=== Professor of psychiatry in Strasbourg and Graz ===
[[File:Feldhof.jpg|thumb|Feldhof (Postcard, dated July 24, 1898)]]
Already boasting an impressive number of scientific publications, von Krafft-Ebing was eager to pursue an academic career. After a trial lecture in [[Leipzig]] under the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Wunderlich, a decision on his habilitation was expected soon. However, on May 13, 1872, von Krafft-Ebing was able to inaugurate his psychiatric clinic in [[Strasbourg]].

After a one-year stint at the newly established Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Strasbourg—the university clinic consisted of two beds in a room for men, another two-bed room for women, and two rooms for clinic management—the now 32-year-old university professor had to tolerate these limitations only for a short time.

Through the mediation of his teacher Roller, he was appointed in 1873 as the director of the newly established Styrian State Asylum [[LKH Graz II Standort Süd|Feldhof]] near Graz, and simultaneously awarded the Chair of Psychiatry at the [[University of Graz]].

The following year, his wife Maria Luise Kißling (1846–1903), who was originally from Baden-Baden, joined him there.

On May 22, 1874, he opened the clinic in Graz and led it until 1880. After years of effort, he was finally relieved from the burdens of his dual role in such a way that he could give up the administration of the Feldhof institution. With appropriate modifications to the clinic and his appointment to a full professorship in 1885, he was solely a Professor of Psychiatry.

=== Rising fame and major works ===
A part of his research was focused on examining the relationships between psychiatry and criminal law. Already during his time in Strasbourg, he published his ''Fundamentals of Criminal Psychology'', followed in 1875 by his first major work, ''[[Textbook of Forensic Psychopathology]]''. Of the many publications he released, some of which saw multiple editions and became widely known, notable are his ''Textbook of Psychiatry'' (1st ed. 1879) and his most famous work ''[[Psychopathia Sexualis]]'' (1st ed. 1886), which through numerous, constantly expanded new editions, became the standard textbook on sexual pathology (see also: [[Sexology]]) of the 19th century.

Krafft-Ebing spent thirteen years in the Styrian capital. He was aware that separating psychiatry from neurology would be incompatible with fruitful effectiveness in both fields, and following constant efforts in this direction, his professorship was expanded to include both psychiatry and neurology. During his work at Feldhof and in the Graz clinic, Krafft-Ebing laid the foundation for his global fame. Within a few years, his name spread across the entire world. Patients came to him from many countries. For the increasing number of patients from wealthy families, he built a state-of-the-art [[Private clinic in Mariagrün]] for the time.

His book ''Psychopathia Sexualis'' later became a widely published standard work.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Lenz | first1=K. | last2=Schefold | first2=W. | last3=Schröer | first3=W. | title=Entgrenzte Lebensbewältigung: Jugend, Geschlecht und Jugendhilfe | publisher=Juventa-Verlag | series=Juventa Paperback | year=2004 | isbn=978-3-7799-1717-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lJliAEKu1BoC&pg=PA83 | language=de | trans-title=Boundless Life Management: Youth, Gender and Youth Welfare | page=83}}</ref> In the same year, 1886, he was elected a member of the [[German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina|Leopoldina]].

=== Activities in Vienna ===
Given the reputation that Richard von Krafft-Ebing had meanwhile established in the professional world—as he was also frequently consulted abroad (Italy, France, Russia, etc.)—it was inevitable that he was first appointed in 1889 to Vienna at the ''I. Psychiatric Clinic of the Lower Austrian State Asylum'' following [[Maximilian Leidesdorf]], and he became a professor of psychiatry at the [[University of Vienna]].<ref>''Small Chronicle - Vienna, April 2 - From the University'' (right column below), in: Neue Freie Presse, Morning Paper, No. 8839, April 3, 1889, [https://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?apm=0&aid=nfp&datum=18890403&seite=4&zoom=2 p. 4]</ref> In 1892, after the death of [[Theodor Meynert]], he was called to the psychiatric university clinic of the [[General Hospital of the City of Vienna]]. Several professional publications appeared again from his pen, such as in 1894 his well-known monographs on ''[[Neurolues|Progressive Paralysis]]''—a disease he also highlighted in 1897 at the International Medical Congress in [[Moscow]] in a highly regarded lecture.

According to Volkmar Sigusch, he adopted the degeneration theories of his French research colleagues<ref>{{cite book | last=Sigusch | first=Volkmar | title=Geschichte der Sexualwissenschaft |trans-title=History of Sexual Science | publisher=Campus Verlag | publication-place=Frankfurt | date=2008-05-13 | isbn=978-3-593-38575-4 | language=de | page=191}}</ref> and borrowed the term [[wiktionary:Sadism|Sadism]] used in France since 1834 (Dictionnaire universel de Boiste, eighth edition)<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/fre_b1886158 |author1=Pierre Claude Victoire Boiste |author2=Charles Nodier |trans-title=Universal Dictionary of the French Language, with Latin and Etymologies, Comparative Excerpt, Concordance, Critique and Supplement of All French Dictionaries |title=Dictionnaire universel de la langue française, avec le latin et les étymologies, extrait comparatif, concordance, critique et supplément de tous les dictionnaires français |language=fr |year=1834}}</ref> as the name for a pathology. The now well-known technical term "[[Masochism]]" was coined by him.<ref>For the development of the theoretical construct "Perversion" by Krafft-Ebing and its relation to these terms, see {{cite journal |first=Andrea |last=Beckmann |journal=Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture |volume=8 |issue=2 |year=2001 |pages=66–95 |url=https://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol8is2/beckmann.html |title=Deconstructing myths: the social construction of "sadomasochism" versus "subjugated knowledges" of practitioners of consensual "SM"  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303170806/http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol8is2/beckmann.html |archive-date=3 March 2016 }}</ref> He also dealt extensively with [[Suggestion|Hypnotism]] and was one of the first to apply it clinically. Increasingly, he was called in as a forensic expert.

For the subsequent generation of researchers around [[Magnus Hirschfeld]], Krafft-Ebing's findings and his strict empirical method formed the starting point for their own research.

=== Later years in Graz ===
At the age of sixty-two, Krafft-Ebing retired for health reasons to Graz, to the [[Private clinic in Mariagrün]] he had created—after having previously celebrated his thirtieth anniversary as a university professor in Vienna; and just half a year after his retirement, multiple strokes ended his life on December 22, 1902. He was buried at the [[St. Leonhard Cemetery|St. Leonhard Cemetery in Graz]] and left behind his wife, two sons, and a daughter.

"He was an utterly noble nature," reads the obituary in the Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift, "toward his patients he was of touching kindness and friendliness. Nothing could disturb his calm; he possessed perfect self-control and proved himself equal to any situation. His tall figure, his firm stride, his calm gaze, his intellectual countenance had often a marvelous effect on the most agitated patients."