Richard Appignanesi

Vienna in the 1890s was famous for its Blue Danube, its wit, sensuality, waltzes and cafés … But it had a darker side!
POVERTY

RACISM
Karl lueger, mayor of vienna, made anti-Semitism politically fashionable.

THE SO-CALLED VITAL FUNCTIONS ARE SIMPLY EXCHANGES OF ENERGY BETWEEN LIVIN AND NONLIVING MATTER.

The nervous systems of higher and lower life are made of the same basic stuff. Does this mean the human mind and that of frogs differ only in degree of complication?
The Mechanist answer is — yes!

First he served as assistant to Hermann Nothnagel (1841–1905), Professor of Internal Medicine.

Freud spends 5 months working in the Psychiatric Clinic under Theodor Meynert (1833–92), the greatest brain anatomist and neuropathologist at that time

THE MOST CONCENTRATED NERVOUS STRUCTURES ARE HERE…
WHAT ABOUT IDEAS?
SIMPLY THE PSYCHOLOGICAL RESULT OF A NEUROLOGICAL PROCESS.

Freud studied the effects of cocaine — starting on himself.

Why? Because by 1886 cases of cocaine addiction were reported everywhere.
And Fleischl-Marxow had become a despairing addict.

Jean Martin Charco