ABSTRACT
In 1857 Guido Weber moved to Leipzig where he remained until the end of his medical studies. There are a few personal glimpses of Weber in his personal file, including two self reports of illness. In the first, dated February 7, 1894, Weber tells of an illness that started as a “bronchial catarrh” and within a short time was followed by a “peculiar, intensive complication with concurrent sleeplessness, and a complete lack of appetite, affecting the lower rectum.” In a letter of 1906 to the Ministry in connection with a forthcoming congress of psychiatrists in Milan, Weber expresses appreciation for the honor and voices concern about his failing health. By 1805 the spread of humanistic ideas under the influence of French psychiatry led to the institutional separation of two kinds of inmates: felons and madmen. The very admission to a psychiatric facility was seen as a “psychic choc”.
