Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum

Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum (December 28, 1828, Driesen - April 15, 1899) was a German psychiatrist who practiced medicine at Wehlau and Königsberg before becoming director of the mental hospital at Görlitz, Prussia in 1867. He would remain at Görlitz for the remainder of his life. He is primarily known for research he did in Görlitz with his associate Ewald Hecker regarding studies done on young psychotic patients. Kalhlbaum and Hecker were the first to describe and label syndromes of the mentally ill such as dysthymia, cyclothymia, catatonia, paranoia and hebephrenia. In doing this, they were the first to apply clinical practices to the study of mental health. The eminent psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin found their work to be a major influence concerning his studies of dementia praecox and manic depression.

Kahlbaum referred to what is known today as schizophrenia as Jugendliche Irresein or "juvenile madness", and stressed the importance of parental upbringing to prevent this condition from occurring. However he is better known for his study of catatonia. In his monograph, Die Katatonie oder das Spannungsirresein, he characterized catatonia as disturbance in motor functionality that represents a phase in a progressive illness that includes stages of mania, depression and psychosis that typically ends in dementia. The eponymous Kahlbaum's syndrome is a catatonic symptom characterized by continuous and purposeless rhythmic repetition of words and sentences that are meaningless or insignificant.

Scientific Works

 * Die Gruppierung der psychischen Krankheiten und die Einteilung der Seelenstörungen, 1863
 * Die Katatonie, 1874