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Julius Wagner-Jauregg

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Doctor

The Resume

    (March 7, 1857-September 27, 1940)
    Born in Weis, Austria
    Birth name was Julius Wagner
    Family name changed to Wagner von Jauregg when his father was given the title of Ritter (1883) then to Wagner-Jauregg when the Austro Hungarian Empire dissolved and associated titles of nobility were abolished (1918)
    Psychiatrist
    Director of the Clinic for Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases in Vienna
    Developed malariotherapy as a treatment for tertiary syphilis: a patient would be deliberately infected with malaria, which would induce a fever that would kill off the syphilis bacteria. The anti-malaria drug quinine was used to regulate the fever and to terminate the malarial infection when the treatment was over
    Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1927)

Why he might be annoying:

    Malariotherapy had a fatality rate of 15%, so it was abandoned once antibiotics that were effective against syphilis were developed.
    He believed that schizophrenia could be caused by excessive masturbation.
    He ‘treated’ several schizophrenic patients by sterilizing them.
    He was President of the Austrian League for Racial Regeneration and Heredity, which advocated for forced sterilization of the mentally ill, criminals, and members of ‘inferior races.’
    He described working women as ‘degenerate’ and said they would be unable to have children or breast feed.
    He became an anti-Semite, a Nazi sympathizer, and a supporter of the Anschluss joining Austria to Nazi Germany.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He convinced the government of Austria-Hungary to distribute iodized salt to prevent goiters.
    Untreated tertiary syphilis had a 100% fatality rate, so malariotherapy constituted a major improvement.
    He was the first psychiatrist to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
    He was turned down for membership in the Nazi Party because his first wife was Jewish.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 79 Votes: 55.70% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying