Freud was not interested in medicine
Despite his excellent intellectual abilities, Sigmund Freud enrolled in the medical faculty not by vocation, but more because of hopelessness. After completing his studies at the gymnasium with honours, at seventeen he did not have such a large choice of professions in which he could go. Anti-Semitic sentiments dominated around, and social status did not allow to choose what he would like. Freud opted for the fact that he was at least interested in learning, rather than the future profession. So, the decisive factor for entering to the medical faculty for him was the attendance of the lecture, at which the professor read to “Nature” by Goethe. Later, Sigmund admitted that he did not feel a special passion for medicine and all his life he felt “misplaced”. After studying for a long time, he was engaged in science more than in medicine and only when he realized that he could not simply make a living for himself and his family, decided to gain experience as a doctor.
Freud has made progress in several fields of science
Sigmund Freud had good intellectual abilities. Before becoming the founder of psychoanalysis, he tried himself in various fields of science. He began with zoology and even achieved success, two times becoming a grant-aided student of the Institute of Trieste. But eventually, he realized that scientific life is an expensive hobby that simply will not maintain him.
In an attempt to gain great experience in medicine, before coming to psychiatry, he worked in surgery, neurology, dermatology. Sigmund Freud made good progress in the treatment of children’s paralysis and aphasia, it was he who specified and considered cerebral palsy as it is known now. During his lifetime, he constantly published his scientific works and articles in various fields of science, from studying the effects of cocaine, to laborious research in psychiatry and neurology.
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Freud was fascinated by cocaine
The great psychoanalyst was fascinated by cocaine. But not as a drug addict, but as an enthusiast, studying the therapeutic effect of the drug and its positive qualities. Initially, he was delighted with the medical effects caused by this substance. For thirteen years, he has been studying the use of cocaine in various diseases:
- during surgical operations;
- nervous exhaustion;
- use in psychiatry;
- with headaches;
- for insomnia;
- for cardiovascular diseases.
He offered cocaine treatment almost to all his acquaintances. He actively used it himself up to 1900. It is worth noting that this happened in times when the harm of cocaine was not proven, so it was from a medical point of view that he could addict a lot of his friends to this substance. Freud gave it even to his pregnant wife as a sedative. And after the harm and addiction to cocaine began to be discussed in the scientific community, the great psychoanalyst defended his point of view for a long time.
Freud had only one wife
He had worldwide fame as a womanizer and ladies’ man. Especially it has grown thanks to his theory about the source of all psychological problems in the sexual dissatisfaction of man. At the beginning of the century, he conducted his practice, accepting a large number of ladies who were dissatisfied with their lives and helped them find a solution based on the source of their problems. But all his life, Freud lived only with his wife Martha, who delivered him six children. At the same time in his youth, he devoted himself to science and until the age of thirty did not know any women at all, he was afraid of them. He had been carrying on a flirtation with his wife for a long time and sought her favouritism, based on norms and traditions. There is an opinion that he paid attention to the sister of his wife Mina for a long time, but mostly because she was erudite and was an interesting interlocutor for Freud.
Freud and the German government
Sigismund Shlomo Freud was a Jew, eventually, he changed his name to Sigmund Freud, in German, he did not like when he was called Sigismund. Anti-Semitic sentiments in the country greatly spoiled his life, both at the beginning of his life’s journey and after Austria’s annexation to Germany. Because of his origin, Freud had to stay in the ghetto, he spent a lot of time in the Gestapo. If it were not for connections and the worldwide glory, as well as the ransom paid by his friends and students, he could not get permission for immigration. Great people were interceding for his release, and the last part of the ransom was paid by Marie Bonaparte.
His books were burned by fascists, to which fact Freud related with humour, saying that this is progress before they would burn him, and now only books. After he was released from the Gestapo, Freud was asked to sign a document that he had no complaints about it, to which he asked: “Can I add that I recommend the Gestapo heartily to everyone?”. The rest of his life the great genius spent in England, unable to return to his homeland.
Freud is the first person in the world to use voluntary euthanasia
At the age of 67, Sigmund Freud had a cancerous tumour in the palate. It all started with small drops of blood on the bread during breakfast and ended with a swelling, bad breath, endless pain and depression. During his life, he went through 33 surgeries, and at the end of his life, he could not even practice, as he had part of the jaw removed and had to wear a painful prosthesis. He was very much helped by his daughter Anna, who went and spoke for him at conferences.
But all the same, such an existence bore the great man and put him in a complete depression. At the age of 83, he decided, not wanting to continue living like this, asked his attending physician to make a lethal injection of morphine. Thanks to this, he became the first person in the world who consciously agreed to euthanasia.
