Julius Wagner-Jauregg was bornJulius Wagner on 7 March 1857 inWels,Upper Austria, the son of Adolph Johann Wagner and Ludovika Jauernigg Ranzoni.[2] His family name was changed to "Wagner von Jauregg" when his father was given the title of "Ritter von Jauregg" (a hereditary title of nobility) in 1883 by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Hence he retained the name Julius Wagner Ritter von Jauregg until 1918 when the empire was dissolved, and nobility was abolished. The family name was then contracted to "Wagner-Jauregg".[3] He attended theSchottengymnasium in Vienna before going on to studyMedicine at theUniversity of Vienna from 1874 to 1880, where he also studied withSalomon Stricker in the Institute of General and Experimental Pathology. He obtained his doctorate in 1880 with the thesis "L'origine et la fonction du cœur accéléré."[2] He left the institute in 1882.
After leaving the clinic, he conducted laboratory experiments with animals, which was practiced very little at this time.[2] From 1883 to 1887 he worked withMaximilian Leidesdorf in the Psychiatric Clinic, although his original training was not in the pathology of the nervous system. In 1889 he succeeded the famousRichard von Krafft-Ebing at the Neuro-Psychiatric Clinic of theUniversity of Graz, and started his research onGoitre,cretinism andiodine. In 1893 he became Extraordinary Professor of Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases, and Director of the Clinic for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases inVienna, as successor toTheodor Meynert. A student and assistant of Wagner-Jauregg during this time wasConstantin von Economo.
Ten years later, in 1902, Wagner-Jauregg moved to the psychiatric clinic at the General Hospital and in 1911 he returned to his former post.
Wagner-Jauregg was angered by what he considered as themalingering of soldiers who claimed to be too mentally upset to return to the battlefield. He applied extremeelectric shock therapy to these soldiers, which caused large numbers of deaths. After the end of the war, the German government opened an inquest into these activities, with the goal of prosecuting him criminally.Sigmund Freud intervened to save Wagner-Jauregg's career.[4]
Wagner-Jauregg (center right in black jacket) watching a transfusion from a malaria patient (rear of the group) to a neurosyphilis victim (center) in 1934
The main work pursued by Wagner-Jauregg throughout his life was related to the treatment ofmental disease by inducing afever, an approach known aspyrotherapy. In 1887 he investigated the effects of febrile diseases onpsychoses, making use of the streptococci that causeerysipelas andtuberculin (the latter discovered in 1890 byRobert Koch). Since these methods of treatment did not work very well, he tried in 1917 the inoculation ofmalaria parasites, which proved to be very successful in the case of dementia paralytica (also calledgeneral paresis of the insane), caused byneurosyphilis, at that time aterminal disease.[5] It had been observed that some who develop high fevers would be cured of syphilis. Thus, from 1917 to the mid 1940s, malaria induced by the least aggressive parasite,Plasmodium vivax, was used as treatment for tertiary syphilis because it produced prolonged and high fevers (a form of pyrotherapy). This was considered an acceptable risk because the malaria could later be treated with quinine, which was available at that time. This discovery earned him theNobel Prize in Medicine in 1927. His main publication was a book titledVerhütung und Behandlung der progressiven Paralyse durch Impfmalaria (Prevention and treatment of progressive paralysis by malaria inoculation) in the Memorial Volume of the Handbuch der experimentellen Therapie, (1931). The technique was known asmalariotherapy; however, it was dangerous, killing about 15% of patients, so it is no longer in use.[6]
Wagner-Jauregg administered thyroid and ovarian preparations to young psychotic patients who had experienced delayed puberty, which led to the development of their secondary sexual characteristics and diminished psychosis. Other patients were deemedschizophrenic because of excessivemasturbation, where Wagner-Jauregg sterilized them, resulting in an "improved" condition.[7]
In 1928, Wagner-Jauregg retired from his post but remained active and in good health until his death on 27 September 1940. In his retirement he published nearly 80 scientific papers.[2] Many schools, roads and hospitals are named after him in Austria.[citation needed]
Towards his last days Wagner-Jauregg was influenced byAdolf Hitler's German nationalism, and became ananti-Semite[8] and sympathizer of Nazism.[9] Documentary evidence indicates that he supported theNazi Party shortly after the invasion of Austria in 1938 by Germany.[10][11][12][13] However, adenazification commission in Austria found that his application for NSDAP membership had been refused "...on grounds of race", as his first wife Balbine Frumkin was Jewish.[14]
Wagner-Jauregg advocated aracial hygiene ideology calledeugenics,[14] influencing students such asAlexander Pilcz, who went on to author a standard handbook on racial psychiatry critical of Jews for being prone to mental illness.[15]
He was also an advocate of forced sterilization of the mentally ill and criminal,[12] having endorsed the concept in 1935 while a member of the Austrian Anthropological Society.[16]
He was President of the Austrian League for Racial Regeneration and Heredity, which advocated sterilization for those of inferior genetics.[17]
Neugebauer, Wolfgang / Scholz, Kurt / Schwarz, Peter (Hrsg.),Julius Wagner-Jauregg im Spannungsfeld politischer Ideen und Interessen - eine Bestandsaufnahme. Beiträge des Workshops vom 6./7. November 2006 im Wiener Rathaus (Frankfurt am Main u.a., Peter Lang, 2008) (Wiener Vorlesungen: Forschungen, 3).
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