University Psychiatry in Magdeburg

The Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy was established at the same time as the Department of Neurology in February 1994, when – through the appointment of the chairs of Neurology and of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy – the former Nerve Clinic of the Medical Academy was converted into two independent departments. In 1996 the department was expanded to include the field of Psychosomatic Medicine.

The Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine fulfils a regional care mandate for Magdeburg. As part of community-based care, it works closely with the relevant complementary services, including the social-psychiatric service.

History of neurology and psychiatry in Magdeburg up to 1994

Neuropsychiatric medicine (Nervenheilkunde), which encompassed clinical neurology and psychiatry, has a tradition of more than 100 years in Magdeburg. In 1891 an "asylum department" was founded as the first clinical facility of the then newly built Sudenburg Hospital. As a precursor of this department, an area for the mentally disturbed already existed before 1891 in the municipal hospital. With Pavilion I (today’s Building 1 of the University Hospital), the "asylum pavilion" of the Sudenburg hospital complex built at that time, a building that was comfortable for the period was erected at a cost of 523,000 Reichsmark. In addition to the "padded cells" customary at the time for aggressively agitated patients, it had two day and dining rooms, four observation halls with 15 beds each and two patient rooms with four beds each (see Figure 1). On the first floor there were apartments as well as offices for the medical and nursing staff.

On the choice of location, the chronicle noted: "...In the search for a suitable building site, agreement was soon reached on a site in Leipziger Straße. Here in the southern part of the city, where the two mighty suburbs of Buckau and Sudenburg – which, owing to their factory populations, supplied a considerable number of patients – fork apart, a site was found not too far from the centre of the city that was outstandingly suited to the establishment of a hospital. Situated on the highest part of the Magdeburg terrain, with sound subsoil, at a great distance from smoking factory chimneys, it offered almost every requirement for the creation of a large hospital complex. Its distance from the centre of the city is admittedly more than 3 kilometres, but after the extension of the horse-drawn tramway connecting the centre of the city with the hospital, the resulting difficulties should as far as possible be removed. It is, unfortunately, an unavoidable drawback of all large cities that fresh, smoke- and dust-free air is only to be found at a greater distance from the centre..."

Soon after the "asylum pavilion" was put into operation, it was decreed that the attractive building should be made available for patients with internal-medicine conditions. To this end the following order was issued:

"... Through the law of 11 July 1891, however, circumstances have changed such that the city now admits its mentally ill only temporarily for observation, in order then to transfer them to the provincial institutions for permanent care. Whereas previously only the acutely mentally ill and those dangerous to the public were handed over to the province, now all mentally ill persons are transferred whose condition makes care within the family appear impracticable. As a result of this changed situation, only a small observation ward is required in the hospital, so that the number of mentally ill patients has hardly risen above 20 since these provisions came into force. The large, spacious building therefore had to be made usable for other purposes..."

In the period that followed, 65 beds for patients with neurological conditions were provided in the predominantly internal-medicine building up to 1929.

The Nerve Clinic was founded as an independent institution of the Sudenburg Hospital in 1929. Professor Pette was appointed as its first director; his focus within neuropsychiatric medicine lay in the neurological field. Isolation facilities were created in the clinic for the acutely ill, while chronically mentally ill patients were transferred to the neighbouring sanatoriums and care institutions. From 1931 to 1934, Professor Jacobi was director of the Nerve Clinic. It was at this time that the first carotid angiography was performed. Further directors followed: Prof. Fünfgeld (1935–1939) and Professor Ruffin (1939–1945). The isolation cells and continuous baths still customary in the first half of the last century were abolished in the 1930s by Prof. Fünfgeld. In 1944 a large part of the Nerve Clinic was destroyed by an aerial mine; reconstruction took place under the clinic director of the time, Professor Steinkopff, who was director until 1954. In 1952 Steinkopff founded the department of child psychiatry; in 1955 electroencephalography was introduced at the clinic.

With the founding of the Magdeburg Medical Academy in 1954, teaching obligations were added to the clinic’s routine clinical tasks. In 1955 Professor Keyserlingk was appointed to the newly created chair of Neurology and Psychiatry, under whom the transition from the municipal Nerve Clinic to an academic institution took place. Further academic development was shaped from 1958 by Professor Parnitzke. After his retirement, Prof. Kühne was appointed clinic director in 1975. During this period the Nerve Clinic was restructured: in 1976 a department of neurology was created, headed by Professor Koch, and a department of psychiatry, which came under Professor Kühne. Added to this was a department of child and adolescent psychiatry and neurology, headed by Prof. Klepel, and a department of clinical psychology under Professor Regel. In 1980 the clinic was supplemented by a department for the then-emerging computed tomography. In 1983 Prof. Koch became director of the Nerve Clinic. After the political changes (die Wende), from 1992 the neurological area of the clinic was headed for a period of two years by Prof. Haas and the psychiatric area by Dr Knorr.

Literature on the history of the clinic:
PARNITZKE, K.-H.: Entwicklungslinien der Neurologie und Psychiatrie, dargestellt am Beispiel der Magdeburger Nervenklinik. In: Das deutsche Gesundheitswesen – Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft für klinische Medizin 19 (1964) 1850–1856