Rudolf Leubuscher

Rudolf Leubuscher (December 12, 1822 - October 23, 1861) was a German physician and psychiatrist who was a native of Breslau. He obtained his medical doctorate in 1844, and became an assistant to Heinrich Philipp August Damerow (1798-1866) at the newly-constructed provincial mental institution in Halle. In 1848 he became habilitated at Humboldt University of Berlin, and in 1855 was a director at the medical clinic in Jena. 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 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.

Among his written works was a German translation of Louis-Florentin Calmeil's landmark work on mental illness called "De la Folie" (About the Delusions). Leubuscher named his translation "Der Wahnsinn in den vier letzten Jahrhunderten" (The Madness in the Last Four Centuries).

He was also close to the Lübeck University professor Ernst Freiherr von Blomberg. They both worked in the same fields of expertise and an abundant correspondance between them shows a remarkable kinship. Both published on clinical lycanthropy, Renfield syndrome and other diseases of the brain. Freiherr von Blomberg, an anthrozoologist and theologist, dedicated his (posthumously published) "Ein seltener fall von Hydrocephalus" to Leubuscher.

He also published an article on aboulia ('Über Abulie', Zeitschr. für Psychiat. 4, 562-578, 1847), listing a number of disorders of the will, including weak-willedness.

References

*de