90. Goethe And Medicine

The rich literature that exists on this relationship proves that the great poet, to whom the capital of Austria has now also erected a monument, had a relationship with the natural sciences that is of profound interest to the natural scientist. A number of the most important natural scientists have endeavored to describe Goethe's significance for their science. One need only recall the relevant writings of Virchow ("Goethe as a natural scientist and in special relation to Schiller", 1861), Helmholtz ("Über Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten" and "Goethes Vorahnungen kommender naturwissenschaftlicher Ideen", 1892), Haeckel ("Goethe, Lamarck and Darwin", 1882) and Cohn ("Goethe as a Botanist", 1881) in order to bring to life the idea of the high value attached to the poet's scientific work by experts in the field. The author of this essay has himself attempted to explain the significance of Goethe's scientific ideas and their position within the scientific development of the nineteenth century in a series of works ("Einleitungen zu Goethes naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften" in the Kürschnersche Goethe-Ausgabe, 1883 to 1897, and "Goethes Weltanschauung", 1897). Whatever else one may think about this significance, one thing seems beyond doubt after the above-mentioned works: Goethe was right to say in a review of his scientific endeavors: "Not through an extraordinary gift of the spirit, not through a momentary inspiration, nor unexpectedly and all at once, but through a consequent effort have I finally arrived at such a gratifying result." In Goethe's scientific ideas, we have before us not just flashes of genius, but the results of strictly methodical work. And if we follow Goethe's efforts historically, it is particularly striking how close he was to the spirit of modern scientific methods in the way he worked. This has been shown particularly clearly in the notes published from Goethe's papers left behind (second section of the great Weimar Goethe edition, volumes 6, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 12, edited by Steiner, volume 8, edited by Professor v. Bardeleben). To point out just one thing, let us mention Goethe's notes on the relationship between the bones of the skull and the vertebrae contained in these papers. We know that the natural philosopher Lorenz Oken was the first to draw public attention to this relationship; and anyone who has read Goethe's scientific writings is also aware that he was familiar with this fact, which is so significant in terms of evolutionary history, before Oken. However, it was not until Carl Gegenbaur's investigations "On the head skeleton of the Selachians", published in 1872, that it was given a firm foundation. The aforementioned records now prove that Goethe did not arrive at his theory suddenly, through a brilliant idea, like the naturalist Oken, but through continued methodical work, and indeed through such work that was already moving in the direction that later led Gegenbaur to his important results (cf. the essay by Professor Karl v. Bardeleben "Goethe als Anatom" in the XII. Bande des Goethe-Jahrbuches, 1892). The poet Goethe proceeded much more methodically than the natural scientist Oken.

It can be observed in many cases with Goethe that a seemingly trivial remark in his writings has an enlightening effect on the whole nature of his work in the most eminent sense. One such remark can be found in the "Appendix" that he added in 1817 to the reprint of his work on the "Metamorphosis of Plants". There he considers certain pathological phenomena in the plant kingdom and speaks of them in the following way: "Nature forms normally when it gives countless details the rule, determines and conditions them; but the phenomena are abnormal when the details prevail and stand out in an arbitrary, even seemingly random way. But because the two are closely related and both the regulated and the irregular are animated by one spirit, there is a fluctuation between the normal and the abnormal, because formation and transformation always alternate, so that the abnormal appears to become normal and the normal abnormal. The shape of a plant part can be abolished or obliterated without us wanting to call it deformity... In the plant kingdom the normal in its completeness is rightly called healthy, physiologically pure; but the abnormal is not immediately to be regarded as diseased or pathological." Such a remark shows how Goethe thought about the pathological. He knew the value of considering the pathological for those who want to form an opinion about the laws of the healthy.

It is certainly not wrong to link such a thought of Goethe's with the poet's relationship to medicine. For his scientific ideas were largely influenced by these relationships. One need only follow his own communications in "Dichtung und Wahrheit" to gain an insight into the significant stimuli that Goethe owed to medicine. At the two universities he attended, he felt more attracted to the medical sciences than to the representatives of other subjects. (An interesting clarification of Goethe's relationship to medicine was recently given by Dr. P.H. Gerber, Privatdozent at the University of Königsberg, in his work "Goethes Beziehungen zur Medizin", Berlin 1900). The poet tells us about his stay at the University of Leipzig: "In the manifold dispersion, indeed fragmentation of my being and my studies, it happened that I had lunch with Hofrat Ludwig. He was a physician, a botanist, and the company consisted, apart from Morus, of all aspiring doctors or doctors approaching perfection. During these hours I heard no other conversation than that of medicine or natural history, and my imagination was drawn into quite another field ... The subjects were entertaining and important and held my attention." And later, at the University of Strasbourg, Goethe spent a stimulating time in a circle of doctors. He reported: "Most of my dinner companions were physicians. As is well known, they are the only students who talk about their science, their profession, with liveliness even outside the lessons. This is in the nature of things. The objects of their endeavors are the most sensual and at the same time the highest, the simplest and the most complicated. Medicine deals with the whole person because it deals with the whole person. Everything that the young man learns immediately points to an important, albeit dangerous, but in many ways rewarding practice. He therefore throws himself with passion into what is to be recognized and done, partly because it interests him in itself, partly because it opens up to him the happy prospect of independence and prosperity." But Goethe did not confine himself to such external stimuli in Strasbourg; he also diligently pursued medical and scientific studies himself. He attended lectures on chemistry by Spielmann and on anatomy by one of the most important anatomists of the time, Lobstein. Special circumstances prompted him to take a further interest in certain branches of the medical art. Herder had come to Strasbourg to undergo an eye operation. Goethe, who had formed an intimate friendship with this outstanding mind, was present at the operation and showed himself to be "of service and assistance to his friend in many ways". We also learn from "Dichtung und Wahrheit" how intensely Goethe was interested in these things at the time. He describes an eye operation that was unsuccessful for his friend Jung-Stilling and includes the words: "Usually, and I had watched it myself several times in Strasbourg, nothing seemed easier in the world, as Stilling had also succeeded a hundred times. After a painless incision had been made through the insensitive cornea, the cloudy lens popped out by itself at the slightest pressure, the patient immediately saw the objects and only had to wait blindfolded until a completed cure allowed him to use the delicious organ at will and convenience." The interest Goethe took in medical studies in Strasbourg corresponded to a profound need of his nature. No external circumstances would have been necessary to awaken such an interest in him. For in a certain sense he came to the university well prepared in this direction. The time between his studies in Leipzig and Strasbourg was also filled with reading medical writings. He had studied Boerhave's Compendium and his aphorisms, which formed the basis of medical teaching at the time.

When Goethe was then summoned to Weimar by Duke Karl August in 1775, he immediately entered into relations with the neighboring University of Jena. Once again, it was the physicians from whom he drew his most important inspiration. He studied anatomy in depth under the guidance of Court Councillor Loder. A manuscript he left behind (now published in Volume VIII of the Weimar Goethe Edition) shows how he pursued this science entirely in the spirit of a rational comparative method. One fruit of his studies is his important discovery that humans, like other vertebrates, have an intermaxillary bone in the upper jaw. These studies in Jenens enriched his anatomical knowledge to such an extent that he was able to give anatomical lessons to the students of the Weimar Academy of Drawing. The thoroughness of Goethe's studies is also evidenced by the fact that in the winter of 1781, he worked particularly diligently on the study of ligaments with Hofrat Loder, a subject that was "neglected by the medical youth" at the time.

It was Goethe's need for a comprehensive view of nature that corresponded to the whole disposition of his mind that drove him to an energetic preoccupation with empirical natural science, which he found best in the circles of medical experts. But this preoccupation also caused the poet to develop a deep understanding of medical science. The nature of this understanding is shown clearly enough by a description he gives in "Dichtung und Wahrheit" of the medical movement of the seventies of the last century. "For a light had dawned on excellent, thinking and feeling minds that a direct, original view of nature and action based on it was the best that man could wish for, and not even difficult to attain. Experience, therefore, was again the general watchword, and every one opened his eyes as well as he could; but it was actually the physicians who had most reason to urge it, and opportunity to seek it.... Because some extraordinary people, such as Boerhave and Haller, had really achieved the unbelievable, it seemed justified to demand even more from their students and descendants. It was claimed that the course was broken, since in all earthly things there can seldom be any question of a course; for just as the water that is displaced by a ship immediately collapses again behind it, so also error, when excellent spirits have pushed it aside and made room for themselves, naturally closes up again very quickly behind them."

In an important matter concerning medical teaching, Goethe even came up with a fruitful practical suggestion. He first presented it as a "semi-fiction" in chapter 3 of "Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre". The difficulty of procuring the necessary objects for anatomical teaching led him to the idea of using plastic replicas for educational purposes instead of real organic bodies. He later approached Privy Councillor Beuth in Berlin with a proposal to this effect. A part of the letter to him is printed in Goethe's works under the title "Plastic Anatomy". Here he mentions that this "plastic anatomy" has been practiced in Florence for many years and adds the remark: "But should one not immediately think of Berlin when calling for such a location, where everything - science, art, taste and technology - is together and therefore a highly important, admittedly complicated undertaking could be carried out immediately by word and will?" Goethe has very specific suggestions in this direction: "Send an anatomist, a sculptor, a plaster casterer to Florence to be instructed in the special art in question. The anatomist learns to work out the specimens for his own purpose. The sculptor descends from the surface of the human body deeper and deeper into the interior and lends the higher style of his art to objects that would be repulsive and unpleasant without such ideal assistance. The caster, already accustomed to adapt his skill to more intricate cases, will find little difficulty in disposing of his task; he is no stranger to handling wax of various colors and all kinds of dimensions, and he will soon achieve what is desirable." The fact that such a suggestion for a pedagogical aid, which was later used in so many ways, came from Goethe proves how thoroughly he dealt with the requirements of medical teaching.

When one considers Goethe's close relationship with medicine, it is not unreasonable to say that this spiritual field also plays an important role in his life's poetry, in "Faust". Faust's personality is reminiscent of Paracelsus and other medical scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Goethe put much of his own essence into this figure. And when we read Faust's reflections on his art as a physician, we may remember that similar thoughts often arose in Goethe's own soul. Questions about the significance of medicine for life certainly often occupied Goethe, as he had become acquainted with the art of healing from a more than merely theoretical perspective through his frequent illnesses. After all, it is entirely in the spirit of his world view to think of the physical in full unity with the spiritual. He, to whom everything human was so intimately familiar, had to be led back again and again to the science of which he had gained the conviction in Strasbourg that it deals with the whole human being, because it has to do with the whole human being. But there is also a branch of medical science to which Goethe was particularly close through his artistic work: psychiatry. Even if we cannot claim that Goethe dealt with this field theoretically in the same way as with the purely physical phenomena of the living organism, it is nevertheless extremely interesting to note his keen eye for psychological abnormalities. His Werther, Orest, the harpist in "Wilhelm Meister", his Lila, Mignon and finally Gretchen are exemplary achievements in the depiction of pathological psyches. Gerber ("Goethe's Relations with Medicine") has subtly pointed out that Goethe portrays Mignon's character as it must be due to the girl's descent from her siblings.

Numerous paths led Goethe to medicine. He, who said that true art must be an expression of the highest laws of nature, that poetry rests on the foundations of knowledge, proved through his relationships with medicine that he knew how to assign this spiritual field its rightful place in the totality of the human spirit.