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Abstract

Around 1800 the relationship between doctors and patients was determined by two opposing therapeutic principles, both of which were able to look back on a long tradition. On the one hand, the Enlightenment period lent prominence to the principle of correction, as can be traced paradigmatically in the field of orthopaedics. In this case medical treatment was closely linked to the conception of education. This approach emerged around 1800, particularly in the form of Brownianismus - in the field of psychiatry among others. At the same time the therapeutic principle of sympathy, which has its roots in magic healing, gained fresh impetus in the "electric age" of the Enlightenment, particularly through mesmerism (animal magnetism). Here it is a question of the hidden interdependence in nature, which gained considerable importance especially in the field of psychology on the early nineteenth century (in the context of the so-called Romantic Medicine). It is this area of tension, the combination of external correction and internal sympathy, which makes the period between Enlightenment and Romantic such a fascinating subject in the history of medicine.