Carl Friedrich Flemming (December 27, 1799 – January 27 1880) was a German psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

 born in Jüterbog

Jüterbog

Jüterbog is a historic town in north-eastern Germany, located in the Teltow-Fläming district of Brandenburg. It is located on the Nuthe river at the northern slope of the Fläming hill range, about southwest of Berlin.-History:...

. He was the father of cellular biologist Walther Flemming

Walther Flemming

Walther Flemming was a German biologist and a founder of cytogenetics.He was born in Sachsenberg near Schwerin as the fifth child and only son of the psychiatrist Carl Friedrich Flemming and his second wife, Auguste Winter...

 (1843-1905).

After receiving his medical doctorate from Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, he worked as an assistant at the Irrenheilanstalt Sonnenschein (Sonnenschein mental asylum) near Pirna

Pirna

Pirna is a town in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, capital of the administrative district Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge. The town's population is over 40,000. Pirna is located near Dresden and is an important district town as well as a Große Kreisstadt...

. From 1830 to 1854 he was director of the new psychiatric hospital at Sachsenberg. From 1854 he maintained a private practice in Schwerin

Schwerin

Schwerin is the capital and second-largest city of the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The population, as of end of 2009, was 95,041.-History:...

.

In 1844 he introduced the term dysthymia mutabilis to describe a disorder that was an alternation of dysthymia atra (black depression) and dysthymia candida (low-level mania). He was part of the somatic school

Somatic school

The somatic school was a group of nineteenth century German psychiatrists, including Carl Jacobi, Christian Friedrich Nasse and Carl Friedrich Flemming, who taught that insanity is a symptom of biological diseases located outside the brain, particularly diseases of the abdominal and thoracic...

who held that insanity is a symptom of biological diseases located outside the brain, particularly diseases of the abdominal and thoracic viscera, akin to the delirium caused by many acute biological illnesses.

Written works

• De noctis circa morbos efficacia, etc; (Berolini, Typis Ioannis Friderici Starckii 1821).
• Die Menschenseele (The Human Soul), 1830
• Die Thierseele (The Animal Soul), 1830.
• Die Irren-Heilanstalt Sachsenberg bei Schwerin im Großherzogthum Mecklenburg: Nachrichten über ihre Entstehung, Einrichtung, Verwaltung und bisherige Wirksamkeit, 1833.
• Pathologie und Therapie der Psychosen. Nebst Anhang: Über das gerichtsärztliche Verfahren bei Erforschung krankhafter Seelenzustände (Pathology and Treatment of Psychosis, with appendix:...), 1859.
• Ueber Geistesstörungen und Geisteskranke (On Mental Disorders and the Mentally Ill). 1872
• Zur Klärung des Begriffs der unbewussten Seelen-Thätigkeit (Clarification on the Concept of Unconscious Mental Activity) 1877.