Johann Christian Reil

Who was Johann Christian Reil?

Johann Christian Reil was a German physician, physiologist, anatomist and psychiatrist. He coined the term psychiatry or, in German, Psychiatrie in 1808.

Medical conditions and anatomical features named after him include Reil's finger, Beau-Reil cross furrows on the fingernails and the Islands of Reil in the cerebral cortex. In 1809, he was the first to describe the white fibre tract now called the arcuate fasciculus. and the locus coeruleus.

From 1788 to 1810 he worked in a hospital in Halle, Germany. In 1795 Reil established the very first journal of psychology in German, the Archiv für die Physiologie. In 1810 he became one of the first university teachers of psychiatry when appointed professor of medicine in Berlin.

From 1802-1805 the poet Goethe visited Reil to discuss scientific matters such as psychiatry, as well as to access his skills as a physician.

Reil used the term 'psychiaterie' in a short-lived journal he set up with J.C. Hoffbauer, Beytrage zur Beforderung einer Curmethode auf psychischem Wege. He argued there should not just be a branch of medicine or of theology or penal practice, but a discipline in its own right with trained practitioners.