ABSTRACT
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was born to a Jewish family in Freiburg, Germany. The Freuds moved to Vienna when he was 4. Throughout his school years, he was an outstanding student. He graduated with distinction from the Gymnasium in 1878 and took his medical degree at the University of Vienna in 1881. In 1885 he won a modest medical scholarship that allowed him to travel to Paris where he worked under Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-93) at the Salpêtrière hospital. Freud was fascinated with Charcot’s work on hysteria, which he treated as a disease, and his use of hypnotism to reproduce symptoms of hysteria in his patients. In 1886 Freud began his practice as a physician in Vienna, where his focus was likewise on nervous disorders. Vienna remained his home until 1938, when he was forced to flee Austria for England after the Nazi Anschluss. He died in London the following year.
