Hermann Oppenheim

Vocation

Notable

Eminent German neurologist. He was the son of rabbi Juda Oppenheim (14 March 1824 - 31 October 1891, Warburg). On 4 October 1852 the rabbi married the widow Cäcilie Grünewald, born Steeg (12 November 1822 - 17 November 1898, Warburg), and adopted her three children: Amalie, Jakob and Minna Grünewald. They got another three children: Emanuel (1853-1914), Hermann and Nanny Oppenheim. Juda belonged to the assimilated German Jews and worked hard to prepare his children for a future by giving private lessons and by working hard till late at night. This enabled his sons Jakob and Hermann to go to university to study medicine and his daughter Nanny to play the piano. From Eastern 1771 till Eastern 1877 he followed as a bright student the Gymnasium Marianum in Warburg. He first studied in Göttingen, end 1877 went to Bonn, where he graduated magna cum laude with "Beiträge zur Physiologie und Pathologie der Harnstoffausscheidung" (1881), that was the result of an open competition he wrote May 1880. In 1882 he became a medical doctor and in June 1882 he started as an assistant of the psychiatrist Eduard Levinstein (1831-1882) in Berlin-Schönebergs Maison de Santë. Since July 1883 he worked under Carl Westphal (1833-1890) and in September 1889 he started his own clinic in Berlin. On 11 June 1891 he applied for a professorship. On 7 Augustus 1893 he got the title Professor Extraordinarius at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, but the official governmental anti-Semitism overruled the University. He went on working and teaching in his private clinic. His textbook of neurology "Lehrbuch der Nervenkrankheiten für Ärzte und Studierende" (1894) lasted 7 editions and was translated in Russian, Spanish, Italian and English. On 18 December 1886 at 1 PM he held in Berlin the speech "Über den Schreck als Ursache von Erkrankungen des Nervensystems", which is one of the first descriptions of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Shell shock. When he in 1889 published on traumatic neuroses, he was fiercely criticized by physicians as Jean-Martin Charcot and Max Nonne, as they could not believe the now well established fact that psychological trauma could cause organic changes in the brain. Personal In April 1891 he married Martha Oppenheimer (31 March 1869- 20 November 1938, Berlin). They got a son Hans Oppennheim (25 April 1892 Berlin - 19 Augustus 1965, Edinburgh), who became a conductor and concert pianist. Hans emigrated in 1933 to England. Martha committed suicide after the Kristallnacht (9-10 November 1938). Hermann Oppenheim died 22 May 1919 in Berlin of heart disease. Link to Wikipedia