ABSTRACT

Sigmund Freud’s influence on medicine signifies a formal change, a radical stimulus to the development of science. The progress which psychoanalysis has brought to medical practice lies chiefly in that it has changed the therapeutic art into a science which can be learned by every intelligent physician with as much ease or difficulty as he learns surgery or internal medicine. Of course there are many ways in which medicine can make use of the Freudian ideas. The successors of the present professors of medicine will then do justice to the real importance of Freud. A characteristic which predestined Freud to become the discoverer of psycho-analysis was his unrelenting criticism of the shortcomings of the therapeutic ability and theoretical knowledge of that day, which showed itself in inadequacy and perplexity when dealing with neuroses. The great changes which have taken place in psychiatry since Freud’s concepts penetrated the walls of asylums are well-known facts.