Géza Csáth

Géza Csáth (né József Brenner) (February 13, 1887 – September 11, 1919), was a Hungarian writer, playwright, musician, music critic and psychiatrist. He was the cousin of Dezső Kosztolányi.

Life
Géza Csáth (pen name of József Brenner) was a writer, critic, music theoretician and medical doctor. A competent violinist even as a child, he also drew and painted. He was barely fourteen years old when his first writings on music criticism were published. After grammar school he moved from his native Szabadka (Subotica) to Budapest in order to study medicine. While at college he wrote short sketches and reviews for newspapers and magazines. He was among the first to laud the work of Bartók and Kodály. After earning his degree as a medical doctor in 1910 he worked for a short time as a junior doctor at the Moravcsik Psychiatric Hospital. It was then that he became a morphine addict. By the time he returned from the First World War he was seriously ill and his addiction became had become a decisive problem in his life. In early 1919 he received treatment in a provincial hospital, but he fled and returned to his home. On July 22nd he shot and killed his wife with a revolver, poisoned himself and slit his arteries. He was rushed to hospital at Szabadka, but later managed to escape again. He wanted to go to the Moravcsik Psychiatric Hospital, but upon being stopped by Yugoslavian border guards he killed himself by taking poison.