1857-1940

Austrian Psychiatrist

In 1927 Julius Wagner-Jauregg was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology for his attempts to treat patients who had syphilitic paresis, or dementia paralytica, by inducing fevers using malaria inoculations. His early research on shock therapy led to experiments on the effect of fever on mental illness.

Julius Wagner, the son of Ludovika Ranzoni and Adolf Johann Wagner, an Austrian government official, studied at the Schottengymnasium in Vienna. He began his medical studies in 1874 at the University of Vienna, where he became interested in microscopy and experimental biology. To immerse himself in these new areas of research, he served as assistant to Salomon Stricker at the Institute of General and Experimental Pathology from 1874-1882. Additionally, Wagner and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) shared many scientific interests and became lifelong friends. In 1880 Wagner was awarded a Ph.D. for his thesis on the heart. His...