Bénédict Morel

MOREL, Auguste Bénédict (Auguste Benedict Morel, 1809–1873), psychiatrist, a prominent representative of the French psychiatric school of the mid-19th century and a student of Esquirol. He received his medical education in Paris and was close to Claude Bernard, who drew his attention to biological questions. From 1841, he was an assistant at the Salpêtrière Hospital; from 1848, a physician at the Maréville psychiatric institution, where he lectured to physicians and students from nearby Nancy. He studied the care of the mentally ill in various European states. From 1853, he was the director of the psychiatric institution in Rouen. Morel's most famous works are «Traité des dégénérescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l'espèce humaine» (Paris, 1857) and «Traité des maladies mentales» (Paris, 1859; 2nd ed., Paris, 1860). Morel introduced a number of ideas into psychiatry that gained wide dissemination: he was the first to formulate the idea of degeneration (see) as a morbid deviation from the original type, as a deterioration of nervous health that has the property of being inherited, increasing more and more from generation to generation. He vividly outlined the type of the degenerate; the "psychopathic personalities" of Kraepelin have their roots in Morel's teachings, and his influence can also be noted in criminology (Lombroso's theory). He was the first to introduce the term démence précoce, which acquired great importance in Kraepelin's school. Dissatisfied with all previous classifications of psychoses, he made an attempt to base his classification exclusively on etiological factors: alongside heredity, he emphasized the importance of material and social factors (harmful occupations, unbearable labor in unsanitary conditions, poverty, etc.). He put forward the proposition that to eliminate certain types of degeneration, the help of society and the state is needed, which must change the conditions of human existence. Thus, he formulated for the first time the principle of the prophylaxis of mental diseases—that striking slogan of modern social psychiatry. He was one of the first in France to put forward the idea of non-restraint for the mentally ill. Morel's most important works, in addition to those named above, are: «De la folie héréditaire» (Paris, 1862); «De la formation du type dans les variétés dégénérées» (Paris, 1864); «Du goitre et du crétinisme, étiologie, prophylaxie, traitement» (Paris, 1864).