Otto Lowenstein

Who was Otto Lowenstein?

Otto Lowenstein was a German-American neuropsychiatrist who was a native of Osnabrück. He grew up Preussich-Oldendorf, the son of Julius Lowenstein and Henriette Grunewald.

In 1914 he received his medical degree from the University of Bonn, and following service as a military physician during World War I, he returned to Bonn as a neuropsychiatric assistant to Alexander Westphal. While at Bonn, he was involved in the fields of pediatric psychiatry and experimental psychology. He became Chief of Staff at the Neuropsychiatric Hospital of Bonn University. He became Chief Neuropsychiatrist and Director of the State Hospital for Nervous and Mental Diseases and founded the pioneering Neuropsychiatric Hospital for children, serving as its head from 1926 to 1933. This hospital continues to operate to this day and is believed to be the first specialized hospital of its kind in the world. He was the Director of the Institute for Heredity in Neuorology and Psychiatry, from 1926 to 1933. Together with his wife, Dr Marta Lowenstein, he conducted 100s of interviews to develop family histories of neurological illnesses. While in Germany he also began early research into pupillography as a means to detect and diagnose mental and neurological disorders including engineering the first machines and methodologies to assist in the study of the eye as a window to the brain.