[Heinrich Damerow (1798-1866). Comments on the title page]

Heinrich Philipp August Damerow was one of the most important German psychiatrists of the nineteenth century. His most notable achievements were in the field of institutional psychiatry. With the construction of a clinic for the mentally ill in Halle-Nietleben, Germany, he realized the concept of a "relatively integrated Mental Hospital and Asylum." As an editor of the Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und psychischgerichtlichen Medicin (Journal of Psychiatry and Psychic-Legal Medicine), he exerted considerable influence. Ideologically, Damerow was a representative until about the mid-nineteenth century of the holistic approach of medicine during the Romantic period, and he was largely influenced by the ideas of Hegel. He found justification for his service to the then ruling Prussian state in the concept of the state as manifestation of divine reason. He supported a holistic approach to treating the mentally ill in which the patient is viewed as a union of body, soul, and mind. This viewpoint was evident in his critical stance toward Esquirol's concept of monomania.