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20:41, 24 August 2018 (UTC)Htewarso (talk)Jenny Thomann-Koller

Jenny Koller/Jenny Thomann-Koller (*14. September 1866 in Zürich; + 5. February 1949 in Zürich) was a gynaecologist and pediatrician and departmental head of internal medicine at the Schweizerische Pflegerinnenschule mit Frauenspital (Swiss Nursing School with Women's Hospital) in Zurich. In her dissertation, Beitrag zur Erblichkeitsstatistik der Geisteskranken im Ct. Zürich. Vergleichung derselben mit der erblichen Belastung gesunder Menschen u. dergl. (Contribution to the Statistics of Heritability of the Mentally Ill in the Canton of Zurich. Comparing these with the Hereditary Burden among Healthy People and the like), published in 1895, she introduced a control group and therefore challenged the then popular theory of degeneration.

1. Life

Jenny Koller was born in Zurich (Switzerland) on September 14, 1866. She was the second child of Konrad Adolf Koller, horsehair manufacturer and merchant, and Katharina Huber. As a gifted student her ambition was to become a teacher. Her forward-looking mother, however, suggested she study medicine and took her to see Dr. Marie Heim-Vögtlin, the very first Swiss female physician, who told her about the difficulties she would face in her medical studies and as a physician but also described the practice of medicine as very meaningful and rewarding. Intending to study medicine, Jenny Koller enrolled in the Lehrerinnenseminar (teachers college) from 1883-1887 and, after passing the Maturitätsexamen (qualifying exam), she began her medical studies at the University of Zurich, which she completed in 1892. This was followed by an assistantship of some seven months at the Charité Hospital in Paris. (Women in Switzerland were permitted to study medicine but assistantships were generally denied to them.) Back in Zurich, she worked variously as a substitute Assistenzärztin at the Rheinau Mental Asylum. In 1893/94 she opened her first private Practice of Gynecology and Pediatrics. She published her dissertation in 1895 in the journal Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten. In the 1890s she was associated with Swiss Association for Ethical Culture. Her name also appeared among the members of Abstinent Physicians in the German language areas.

In 1901 she married Dr. Heinrich Thomann, the Director of the newly founded Statistical Bureau of the City of Zurich, with whom she had three children (Heinrich, Jenny, and Felix). She continued her private medical practice, however. As Dr. Jenny Thomann-Koller she began her long association with the Pflegerinnenschule mit Frauenspital. She had been a member of the planning committee since 1899 and was thus closely associated with this pioneering undertaking. She would keep her position as departmental head physician for internal medicine until 1919.

In 1923, Heirnich Thomann suffered a stroke which affected his speech and cognitive ability. A second stroke in 1925 led to his death. Dr. Thomann-Koller continued her large practice on Schanzengasse 29 until 1933 and then on a smaller scale on Lintheschergasse until 1941. She spent her last years with her children and grandchildren and finally at the retirement home in Zurich.

2. Career

Jenny Koller pursued her unusual educational and career path not alone but together with three other Zurich women. Together they attended the Lehrerinnenseminar.</ref> From 1887-1892 they studied medicine at the University of Zurich, obtaining their medical degrees by passing the Staatsprüfung (state exam). Soon after they earned their doctorates with Inaugural Dissertations and were promoted to Dr. med..2) Their friendship endured throughout their lifetimes. Three of them, Jenny Koller (after 1901 Thomann-Koller), Ida Schmid (after 1896 Hilfiker-Schmid), and Pauline Gottschall established private practices, which they maintained for over thirty years. The fourth, Josephine Zürcher (after 1899 Fallscheer-Zürcher) spent three decades as a physician in the Middle East, often in association with missionary hospitals and attending to the victims of the 1895 Armenian massacres. In addition to their remarkable careers, the four physicians published scientific articles and, what is even more impressive, took a stand against the then popular theory of degeneration, the rigid psychiatric categorization of mental illness, and the theory and practice of eugenics.3)

The Statistical Study: In her dissertation, Beitrag zur Erblichkeitsstatistik der Geisteskranken im Ct. Zürich. Vergleichung derselben mit der erblichen Belastung gesunder Menschen durch Geistesstörungen u. dergl., Jenny Koller cut a new path. She was the first to introduce in her study a control group of healthy people to be compared with the mentally ill. Her results showed that the healthy group had a surprisingly high percentage of ancestors with mental illness. She therefore concluded that this “proved the effect of the regenerative factor.”4) With this assertion she challenged the widely accepted theory of degeneration among psychiatrists (including her own professor Auguste Forel), and suggested a more sophisticated/differentiated diagnosis regarding the heritability of mental illness. Ten years later, another Swiss, Otto Diem (1875-1950), confirmed Koller’s results by way of his own equally careful but more encompassing study.5) For the next three decades, Koller’s study and after 1905 also Diem’s, became the subject of an intense discussion among renowned biologists and psychiatrists in journals, textbooks and international conferences.6) Even the most recent scholarship on the history of statistics and eugenics refers to and acknowledges the significance of Jenny Koller’s seminal study.7)

Private Medical Practice: Notwithstanding her intensive interest in and study of psychiatric questions and her clinical experience at the Mental Asylum Rheinau, Dr. Koller (after 1901 Dr. Thomann-Koller) decided to go into private practice in gynaecology and pediatrics. Her very successful practices were located in Zurich (Dufourstrasse 47 (1893/94-1901), Seefeldstrasse 19 (1902-1909), Schanzengasse 29 (1910-1933) and Lintheschergasse 10 (until 1941). Initially quite timid, she quickly gained confidence and earned the trust of a large circle of patients and friends. Her concerns were not only with the medical problems of the patient but with the entire person.7) “She had a pronounced sense of the inner worth of an individual regardless of his or her social standing.”8) Moreover, she was intent to keep up with medical improvements and to this effect travelled to Berlin for a course on obstetrics.

Pflegerinnenschule: Dr. Jenny Thomann-Koller was one of three departmental heads in the Swiss Pflegerinnenschule mit Spital founded in 1901. Of these Dr. Anna Heer was the director with a specialty in gynecology and obstetrics; Dr. Thomann-Koller’s specialty was internal medicine, and Dr. Marie Heim-Vögtlin was in charge of the nursery and the post-partum patients. Their responsibilities included the care of patients within their department in conjunction with the in-house physician, mutual assistance during operations and on Sundays or holidays. Together with the matron, they formed the committee on admissions. All three physicians worked free of charge, with the exception of their private patients (who were insured), because they continued to have their own private practices. The original medical team remained the same until the First World War. But in 1914 the matron Ida Schneider left, Dr. Heim-Vögtlin retired in 1915; Dr. Heer died in 1918, and in 1919, Dr. Thomann-Koller took her leave.10) The ledgers, protocols, and journals of the gynecological and obstetric departments record the close and long-lasting association of Dr. Thomann-Koller with the “Pflegi”. Reports or statements of a personal nature, however, are absent.11)

3. Publication:

Beitrag zur Erblichkeitsstatistik der Geisteskranken im Ct. Zürich. Vergleichung derselben mit der erblichen Belastung gesunder Menschen durch Geistesstörungen u. dergl. Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten (Berlin, XXVII.1.1895), 268–295 (Digitalisat).

4. Literature (Selection):

Katharina Banzhaf: Vorläufer der psychiatrischen Genetik: Die psychiatrische Erblichkeitsfor- schung in der deutschsprachigen Psychiatrie im Spiegel der Allgemeinen Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, 1844–1911, Inauguraldissertation (Gießen 2014).

Heidi Thomann Tewarson: Die ersten Zürcher Ärztinnen. Humanitäres Engagement und wissenschaftliche Arbeit zur Zeit der Eugenik. (Schwabe Verlag Basel 2018).

Theodore M. Porter: Asylums of Hereditary Research in the Efficient Modern State, in: Müller- Wille, Staffan; Brandt, Christina (Hg.): Heredity Explored: Between Public Domain and Experimental Science (Cambridge/Mass., London 2016), 81–109.

⏤ Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity (Princeton 2018).

Bernd Gausemeier: Pedigree vs. Mendelism. Concepts of Heredity in Psychiatry before and after 1900, in: Max-Planck-Institut für die Wissenschaftsgeschichte. 2008, Preprint 343 (Conference: A Cultural History of Heredity IV: Heredity in the Century of the Gene), 149 –162.

Sylvia Baumann Kurer: Die Gründung der Schweizerischen Pflegerinnenschule mit Frauenspital in Zürich 1901 und ihre Chefärztin Anna Heer (1863–1918) (Zürich 1991).

Hans Jakob Ritter: Von den Irrenstatistiken zur «erblichen Belastung» der Bevölkerung. Die Entwicklung der Schweizerischen Irrenstatistiken zwischen 1850 und 1914. In: Traverse. Bd. 10 (2003), S. 59–70, doi:10.5169/seals-23617, hier S. 66 (Digitalisat).

5. References: