Friedrich Groos was a German physician and philosopher born in Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

.

Initially a student of law in Tübingen

Tübingen

Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...

 and Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

, his interest later turned to medicine. From 1792 studied medicine in Freiburg im Breisgau and Pavia

Pavia

Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...

, and following graduation became Stadtphysikus in Karlsruhe. From 1805 to 1813 he worked as a doctor in several locations, and in 1814 became a senior physician at the asylum and Siechenanstalt in Pforzheim

Pforzheim

Pforzheim is a town of nearly 119,000 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg, southwest Germany at the gate to the Black Forest. It is world-famous for its jewelry and watch-making industry. Until 1565 it was the home to the Margraves of Baden. Because of that it gained the nickname...

. With the 1826 relocation of the Pforzheim mental asylum to Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

, he moved to the latter city, where he also gave lectures in psychiatry

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

 at the university.

Groos was the author of works in several subjects, such as philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, forensic medicine, psychiatry, et al. During a period of severe illness, he became deeply interested in Stoic philosophy. As a psychiatrist he believed that mental illness

Mental illness

A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...

was due to spiritual as well as mental causes.

Written works

• Betrachtungen über die moralische Freiheit und Unsterblichkeit (Reflections on Moral Freedom and Immortality), 1818
• Über das homöopathische Heilprincip. Ein kritisches Wort (Concerning the Homeopathic Health Principle; A Critical Word), 1825
• Untersuchungen über die moralischen und organischen Bedingungen des Irreseyns und der Lasterhaftigkeit (Studies on the Moral and Organic Conditions of Insanity and Depravity), 1826
• Entwurf einer philosophischen Grundlage für die Lehre von den Geisteskrankheiten (Philosophical Basis for the Doctrine of Mental Illness), 1828
• Ideen zur Begründung eines obersten Princips für die psychische Legalmedicin, 1829
• Die Schellingsche Gottes- und Freiheitslehre vor den Richterstuhl der gesunden Vernunft gefordert, 1829
• Der Weg durch den Vorhof der politischen Freiheit zum Tempel der moralischen Freiheit (The Path through the Atrium of Political Freedom to the Temple of Moral Freedom), 1849