Bernhard von Gudden

Bernhard von Gudden (1824-1886) was a German neuroanatomist and psychiatrist born in Kleve, then in the Kingdom of Prussia. His work joined the study of the nervous system with psychiatric practice in the nineteenth century.

He earned his doctorate at Halle in 1848 and trained at the asylum in Siegburg. He directed the institution in Werneck from 1855 to 1869, then the Burghölzli hospital in Zurich, where he also taught. In 1872 he moved to Munich as director of the Upper Bavarian asylum and professor at its university. Among his students were Emil Kraepelin and Franz Nissl.

As a director he argued against restraint, for humane treatment, social interaction among patients and well-trained medical staff, ideas that were new at the time. In neuroanatomy he mapped the pathways and connections of the cranial and optic nerves; the commissure of the optic tract bears his name, and he is credited with a special microtome for sectioning the brain.

He was personal physician to King Ludwig II of Bavaria. In June 1886 both men were found dead in Lake Starnberg; they were said to have drowned, but the circumstances remain unresolved. His son-in-law Hubert von Grashey collected his writings in 1889.