Anton Ludwig Ernst Horn

Anton Ludwig Ernst Horn (24 August 1774 – 27 September 1848) was a German physician who was a native of Braunschweig.

In 1797 he received his doctorate from the

Horn is considered the first practicing psychiatrist at the Charité. In the early 19th century, psychology as a scientific discipline was in its infancy, and barbaric, coercive methods were generally used to treat mental patients. Horn believed that mental illness was largely due to physical suffering, and used an assortment of mechanical devices for therapeutic purposes. He extensively used centrifugal devices such as the "rotating bed" and "rotating chair" for treatment of hysteria at the Charité, and reportedly believed that his patients derived benefits from such practices.

In 1803 Horn published a practical textbook on

• This article incorporates translated text from an equivalent article at the German Wikipedia, whose sources include: ADB:Horn, Ernst In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Band 13, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, S. 135 f.

External links

• Centrifuge “Therapy” for Psychiatric Patients in Germany in the Early 1800s
• [1] NCBI; Venery, the spinal cord, and tabes dorsalis before Romberg: the contribution of Ernst Horn