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Theodor Meynert, Freud's idol and enemy
Freud's hysteria
Freud's hysteria
Professor Theodor Meynert (1833–1892) had the bad luck of having Sigmund Freud as one of his subordinates.
In 1881, Freud, the eternal student, after eight years of learning nothing, at long last, thanks to academic fraud, obtained a medicine doctorate at the University of Vienna. Subsequently, in 1882 Freud entered the General Hospital in Vienna practising under the outstanding Austrian psychiatrist Theodor Meynert considered a visionary pioneer in the history of neurology.
Three years later, in 1885 Freud was appointed lecturer in neuropathology. Unhappy with his position, Freud applied for a scholarship in Paris, which was granted to him thanks to the intervention of his sugar daddies.
Having returned to Vienna in February 1886, from Paris, where, high as a kite on cocaine, he was pretending to be studying under Professor Charcot, Freud, delivered a lecture on the theme of male hysteria to the Vienna Society of Physicians.. As he claimed, met with a bad reception. and subsequently was, excluded from the laboratory of cerebral anatomy, As Freud explained that’s how, I found myself forced into the Opposition. (1) It is all false, a figment of a delusional imagination as the French Freud researcher, Ellenberger (2), had shown.
True or not, Freud believed himself having been prosecuted blaming professor Maynert, for the alleged persecution.
Freud's gradual change in his attitude toward Mayner is apparent in his letters to his fiancé and his boyfriend in Berlin.
Love letters without much love...
Meynert in Freud’s letters to his iancé, Martha
In the published letters to his fiancé, Martha, Freud recounted the development of his relationship with the professor. As always, when encountering a person of importance, as in this case, Freud would start the relationship by ingratiating himself And, from the start, Meynert was positive to his new worker.
As, Freud informed Martha, on October 5, 1882, he received a recommendation from Meynert. (3)
A year later, on August 29, 1883, Freud claimed that Meynert backed him up when he didn’t agree with another assistant. (4)
And on January 28, 1884, Freud wrote that he was, not going to accept the job as Meynert’s assistant; (5) an unlikely claim. There's no way that Meynert would offer this position to someone who was at best mediocre as a doctor.
Already, on the next day, on January 29, 1884, Freud bragged about his relationship with Meynert stating that, Meynert, continues to treat me with great respect and advised me to give a lecture at the Medical Society. (6)
Subsequenlty, on February 14, 1884, Freud recounted Meynert’s, praise … for his lecture. (7)
Freud reciprocated Meynert's praise on June 29, 1884, telling Martha: I respect highly ... Meynert. (8)
Further, on January 16, 1885 Freud revealed that Meynert would, support my application for the Dozentur, (9) adding on January 21, 1885, that Mynert was decidedly optimistic (10) about his application.
That was the end of Freud’s uncontroversial romance with Meynert, Already on May 12, 1885, Freud's message was inconsistent, ambivalent. On one hand, Freud complained that It’s impossible to get along with Meynert; he doesn’t listen, nor does he understand what one says. On the other, contradicting himself, Freud stated that, he rather likes seeing me these days. (11) That’s the last published letter to Martha, in which Meynert was mentioned.
(1) SE 20, pp.15-16.
(2) Ellenberger , Henri F., Freud's Lecture on Masculine Hysteria (October 15, 1886): A Critical Study [1968] in Beyond the Unconscious: Essays of Henri F. Ellenberger in the History of Psychiatry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993..
(3) Freud, Sigmund, The Letters of Sigmund Freud, (1960, pp. 30-34).
(4) Freud, (1960, pp. 51- 52).
(5) Freud, (1960, p. 92).
(6) Freud, (1960, p. 96).
(7) Freud, (1960, pp. 98-99).
(8) Freud, (1960, p. 115).
(9) Freud, (1960, p. 135).
(10) Freud, (1960, pp. 135-136).
(11) Freud, (1960, p. 144).
Always lovely to hear from that boy of mine
Meynert in Freu'd's letters to his boyfriend, Wilhelm Fliess
Also, Freud’s subsequent correspondence with his lover, Fliess, mentions Meynert several times. By then, the paranoid Freud had decided that Meynert was his lethal enemy, and started to treat him as such. Freud had been using cocaine since 1884, his cocaine addiction had him in its claws contributing to his paranoia.
Thus, on February 4, 1888, Freud informed Fliess with apparent disdain that he, must hurry off to an entirely superfluous consultation with Meynert. (12)
And on August 29, 1888, Freud explained that he had attacked Meynert because the latter, in his customary impudent-malicious manner spoke out authoritatively on a topic [hypnosis] of which he knows nothing, (13)
Oddly, even though Meynert was his superior, in all regards, the upstart Freud was condescending in his assessment of the professor,
Now Meynert was, as Freud believed, his enemy, No wonder that Freud was enraged. As he wrote, he had to restrain himself. I have belled the cat, (13) he bragged. The excessive animosity on Freud’s part is unmistakable.
Remarkably, Freud mentioned the fact that he had to restrain himself. What was he intending to do, start a brawl with Meynert? Freud’s apparent aggression could, possibly, in part, have been caused by his excessive consumption of cocaine.
Again, on May 2, 1891, Freud revealed that in his small book on aphasia he was, very impudent, attacking, the high and mighty idol Meynert. (14) Most certainly, Freud was no longer Meynert’s admirer, rather he was seeking a confrontation with his former boss.
Freud's enemy's bust...
Meynert's death
Meynert died a year later on May 31, 1892, Oddly, in the Fliess' letters, there's not a single mention of Meynert's prolonged illness of which Freud cannot have been uninformed. Even more oddly, Meynert's death wasn’t mentioned in any of Freud’s letters to his lover.
After all, both the illness and death of his sworn enemy wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by the pathologically revengeful Freud. And yet, not a single letter mentions those fateful events.
Six weeks later, on a Tuesday, July 12, 1892 p. 32, Freud informed Fliess about having successfully raided Meynert’s library, writing:
Last week brought me a rare human pleasure, he wrote, the opportunity to select from Meynert's library what suited me - somehow like a savage drinking mead from his enemy's skull. (15)
As always, when it comes to Freud’s allegorical expressions, his statement about him behaving like, like a savage drinking mead from his enemy's skull is a hint.
What hint? Without a doubt, Freud was referring to the mistaken belief that the Vikings drank from the skulls of their slaughtered enemies. Was Freud, thus, in this circumvent way intimating that he had caused Meynert’s death?
Explanation or obfuscation?
This is how the editor of the letter explained Freud’s statement, Freud probably paid a condolence visit to the household and was given the choice of some of Meynert's books as a remembrance. (15) And the explanation is as absurd as it sounds. As so often when the editor feels the need to clarify the background of what happened, there’s always some serious problem with Freud’s statement.
Is it even likely that Freud would have paid the widow of his long-time enemy a condolence visit at all, since Freud had nothing to do with Meynert for years? A condolence visit would most certainly not be on his mind. If anything, he would have been in a jubilant rather than sombre mood that such an occasion called for. Another one of his “enemies”, whom he survived, dead. Hurray!
Moreover, considering Freud’s long-lasting animosity toward Meinert, it is highly improbable that his widow would even allow Freud to visit their home, let alone let him rummage through, and plunder freely, her husband’s valuable library. As well, one doesn’t pay one’s condolences six weeks after the funeral of the deceased. Thus, the explanation of how Freud obtained access to Meynert’s library doesn’t make sense.
Break in?
Rather, more probably, five weeks after Meynert’s death, Freud somehow gained access to - broke into - the dead man’s library at the university, appropriating (or rather stealing) whatever books he wanted and could carry without being noticed and apprehended. Hence, it is more than likely that Freud gave himself permission to enter – or rather break into – Meynert’s library at the university, Breaking into Meynert’s home would have been much more risky. Freud was insane but he wasn't mad.
Notably, Freud didn’t say that he was allowed access, which he would have said if the widow, or anyone else, allowed him in. Rather, like a thief, Freud was talking about the opportunity, when no one was watching. Notably, when talking about, a rare human pleasure, Freud compared himself to, a savage drinking mead from his enemy's skull. There’s nothing human about - like a grave robber – pillaging a deceased person’s belongings,
Was Freud in this way alluding to having caused his enemy’s death? After all, one cannot, be drinking from the skull of one’s enemy, unless he is dead by one’s own hand.
Gap in Fliess' correspondence
As always, when Freud’s potential victims are concerned, the chronology is important. Considering the significant role Meynert played in Freud’s life - but not vice versa - as well as Freud’s hypergraphia (compulsion to write) - one would expect to see Meynert’s name mentioned frequently in Freud’s correspondence with Fliess.
Oddly, this is not the case. Meynert’s name was only mentioned a few (5) times in the published letters, twice in 1888, once in 1891, 1892 and 1898. Remarkably, there are huge breaks between the letters; from 1888 to 1891, a break of three years, from 1891-1892, a break of one year, and from 1892-1898, a break of six years!
Notably, there’s no mention of Meynert’s illness or death in the letters, of which Freud was, no doubt, well aware. This is, indeed, strange considering Freud’s rabid hatred of his former superior, and his obsessive letter-writing. Most certainly, as soon as he learned about the demise of his “enemy”, Freud would have gleefully informed Fliess about the "happy" occasion.
As so often with Freud’s other deceased “friends” – their death assisted by Freud – also the letters from the period around Meynert’s demise are missing. There’s a big gap of 437 days between Freud’s letter of May 2, 1891, and the next, of July 12, 1892, written six weeks after Meynert’s death. Without a doubt, there must have been letters during that period in which Menert's name was mentioned. Where have all those letters disappeared is anyone’s guess. Why is an easier question to answer. Any letters, or passages, detrimental to Freud's image would have been removed before the publication. Without a doubt, Anna Freud would have been most instrumental in this kind of censorship.
He seemed to feel better...
Menert's illness and death
Meynert died on 31 May 1892, of an acute lung disease, only 2 months after retiring from his academic post. (16) Notably, still only a couple of years earlier, Meynert was, still functioning, giving a lecture at the Tenth International Medical Congress held in Berlin, in August 1890, as reported in The Lancet on August 9, 1890.
As one would expect, due to his status, Maynert’s death was reporte in the Vienna newspapers of the day.
The question of Meynert’s general state of health, and the cause of his demise, is important for the question of him being infected by Freud with the same pathogen he used to kill Nathan Weiss.
On June 1, the day after his demise, the Neue Freie Presse reported that, Meynert suffered for some time from dizziness and congestion, and even paralysis of the right arm. He also had speech problems. Since Easter … his condition became more serious, and his strength decreased so much that he was forced to give up the management of his clinic and to retire to his small property in Klosterneuburg. Strangely enough, he seemed to feel better; he spoke of resuming his activity and …. [intended to] pursue his profession … [but] In the last few days, he suffered from a lung affection, which, in his already weakened condition, became fatal.
The Wiener Zeitung reported the same version of the event, most probably courtesy of the same freelance writer.
The next day, thus on June 2, the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung reported that, The scholar had been ill for years, recovering and falling ill again. A few days ago, pneumonia joined his suffering which took him away yesterday. So this was not a recent illness, Meynert, just like Paneth, dying of a lung disease.
On June 9, Wiener klinische Wochenschrift reported that Meynert, died of a rapidly fatal infarction [insufficient blood supply] of the lungs, subsequent to Bright's disease, and hypertrophy [overgrowth] of the heart,
(What is Bright disease: Bright disease [is an] inflammation of the structures in the kidney that produce urine nowadays called nephritis.) (18)
Drinking chloroform
The degree of Freud’s hate of his former mentor is apparent when one considers that, six years after Meynert’s death, as so often with deceased former “friends”, also in Meynert’s case, Freud happily resorted to maligning his dead “enemy”. Thus, in the letter to Fliess, of January 4, 1898, Freud informed him that, Meynert was … drinking of chloroform. (19)
He repeated this blatant calumny in his dream book claiming that Meynert once told him that, in his youth he had indulged in the habit of making himself intoxicated with chloroform and that on account of it he had had to go into a home. (20)
When Freud hated someone, and, especially, once that person was dead, Freud was happy to denigrate his enemy. Dead or alive, Freud hated Meynert with the pathological passion of a madman.
Embittered controversy
It is apparent that, in his deranged mind, Freud believed that it was Meynert that was the culprit in their quarrel since he referred to him as, the great Meynertt, in whose footsteps I had trodden with such deep veneration and whose behaviour towards me, after a short period of favour, had turned to undisguised hostility. (21)
Right or wrong, this is what Freud believed, now being able to denigrate his former idol without fear of any repercussions. Arguably, the truth was different. It was Freud whose veneration, turned to undisguised hostility. For Meynert, Freud was a nobody to whom he paid no attention.
And again, continuing in the same demeaning vein, in The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud recounted an incident, which, as he alleged, took place shortly before Meynert’s death. As Freud revealed he had carried on an embittered controversy with him [Meynert] in writing, on the subject of male hysteria, the existence of which he denied. Without a doubt, Freud was maniacally obsessive. Whether there was even any response from Meynert to Freud’s attacks is doubtful. After all, the light-weight Freud wasn’t someone that the great Meynert would have engaged in a serious discussion with.
Admission
According to Freud he, visited him during his fatal illness. This claim appears to be a blatant lie, and it wouldn’t be Freud’s first. There’s no way that Meynert, or his family, would allow his bitter enemy, Freud, to visit him in the last days of his life. As Freud alleged, on that occasion, Meynert admitted that he, was always one of the clearest cases of male hysteria. (20) This is an unbelievable claim. This was Freud's posthumous revenge.
A recent Freud biographer, Crews, states that, it is preposterous to suppose that he [Meyner] belatedly admitted, to his victorious detractor, that he belonged to a previously denied class of neurotics. (22) In other words, Freud shamelessly lied whenever it suited him. And, how Freud was victorious is an interesting question.
Another of Freud's apologist biographers, Roudinesco, agreed - although without explicitly saying so - that Freud lied about the alleged confession. In her view, The confidence [Meynert's] seems too lovely to be true. (23) Why not say it openly, it's a blatant, shameless lie. True, this can stain Freud's saintly image but, at least when it comes to biographies, even Freud would agree, truth is always preferable to a lie. When one deals with Freud, what one always encounters is perversions, crime, murder, and lies.
Killing Meynert
Could Freud have killed or at the very least, somehow contributed to Meynert’s death? Keeping in mind that Freud’ superior at the clinic, Nathan Weiss, poisoned by Freud with a deadly pathogen, committed suicide on September 13, 1883, aged 32, the obvious question is whether he could have used the same pathogen on his other “friends”. The timing of Nathan’s suicide tells us when Freud obtained the poisonous pathogen that Nathan considered uncurable. Would Freud also have infected Meynert with the same pathogen around this time? Most certainly, considering his hatred of Meynert, when he was at it, it appears logical for a poisoner to also infect his enemy. The timing of Nathan's death coincides with Freud's employment in Meynert’s department between May and September 1883. (24)
Notably, Freud'slove rival, Schonberg, who died in 1886, aged 30; Freud’s scientific competitor, Paneth, who died in 1890, aged 33, and the “enemy”, Meynert, who died in 1892, aged 59, all of them died of a protracted lethal disease (in Schonberg’s case, diagnosed by Freud as tuberculosis).
Assuming he was poisoned, we can't know when Meynert became ill. All that is known is that for many years he continued to work despite the illness. The same applies to Freud's "friend", Paneth. In his case, there's an obvious clue that Freud was behind Paneth’s illness. Thus Freud wrote about Paneth: He had followed in my footsteps as demonstrator in Brücke’s laboratory clarifying that Paneth, knew that he could not expect to live long. (25)
And, unless he could predict the future, how could Freud have known that Paneth knew he wouldn’t live long? But, if it was he who infected Paneth with the deadly pathogen, he would be the first to know what was going to happen – nothing good - to his “friend”.
The chronology of events is uncanny, Freud worked at ... Brucke’s laboratory from 1876 to 1882. (26) Thus he was replaced by Paneth around that time. In 1883 he joined the General Hospital of Vienna where he worked under Meynert until September when he started to work under Weiss. We know that Freud poisoned Weiss with the pathogen when he returned from his honeymoon at the beginning of September. It would have been easy for Freud to kill all three birds with one stone, poisoning them at the same time with the same sample of poison.
Could all of those people’s deaths be accidental? There’s no doubt, that Freud had both an obvious motive, as well as the means, to get rid of all the former “friends” turned enemies. It is not impossible that, rather than by a coincidental infection, their death was caused by the deadly bacterium, acquired by the deadly doctor Freud, to get rid of his rivals and enemies. Most certainly, as he confessed, this is how Freud got rid of his superior Nathan Weiss.
And since Freud suffered from the compulsion to repeat, there’s little doubt that he would have used the same method on other occasions.
(12) Freud, Sigmund, The Complete Letters of Sigmund Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, 1887-1904, (1985, p. 19).
(13) Freud, (1985, p. 24).
(14) Freud, (1985, p. 28).
(15) Freud, (1985, p. 32).
(16) Triarhou, Lazaros C., Theodor H. Meynert (1833–1892) in The Brain Masters of Vienna: Psychology and Neuroscience Pioneers around the Secession up to the Anschluss, (2022 p. 285).
(17) Obituary: Professor Meynert, Vienna, The Lancet, (August 9, 1890, p. 283).
(18) Bright disease, Britanica, https://www.britannica.com/science/Bright-disease. 26.11.2024.
(19) Freud, (1985, p. 293).
(20) SE 5, p. 438.
(21) SE 5, p. 437.
(22) Crews, (2017, pp. 224.225).
(23) Roudinesco, Elizabeth, Freud: In His Time and Ours, (2016, p. 439).
(24) Crews,Frederick, The Making of an Illusion, (2017, p. 35).
(25) SE 5, p. 484.
(26) SE 5, p. 482.
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