Sigmund Freud and Julius Wagner-Jauregg were born and died within about a year of each other. They went to the same medical school, and afterwards studied neuropathology at the same institution. Both planned to go into internal medicine, and applied (unsuccessfully) for the same assistantships. They ultimately became brilliant psychiatrists. Wagner-Jauregg was the first psychiatrist to win the Nobel Prize, for his febrile treatment of psychoses due to syphilis of the nervous system, while Freud developed the principles of psychoanalysis for treating mental disorders and understanding human behavior. Their last years, however, ended quite differently: Wagner-Jauregg became a Nazi supporter and advocate of ‘racial hygiene’, while Freud was terrorized by the Gestapo and had to flee to England.

Today, Freud’s name is universally known, while few outside the specialty are familiar with Wagner-Jauregg. In this book Dr. Mendelson draws on over 40 years’ experience as a psychiatrist to explore the curious decades-long friendship between these two men, and their roles in the history of ‘talking therapies’ and biological treatments for mental illnesses.

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