August Hoch facts for kids
August Hoch (born April 20, 1868 – died September 23, 1919) was an important doctor from Switzerland and America. He was a leading expert in understanding the brain and mental health. From 1910 to 1917, he was the third director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City. He helped shape how doctors understood and treated mental health issues in the early 1900s in the United States.
Early Life and Education
August Hoch was born Charles August Hoch in Basel, Switzerland. His father was a minister and also ran the Basel University Hospital. When August was 19, he moved to the United States in 1886 to study medicine.
He first studied at the University of Pennsylvania. Here, a famous doctor named William Osler greatly influenced him. When Dr. Osler moved to Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland in 1889, Hoch followed him. He worked at the hospital's clinic, which focused on brain and nerve problems. He earned his medical degree (M.D.) from the University of Maryland in 1890.
Career and Studies
In 1893, Hoch started working at the McLean Asylum in Somerville, Massachusetts, near Boston, Massachusetts. His job was to set up new laboratories for studying diseases and the mind, and to improve how they treated patients with mental health conditions. Before starting, he traveled to Europe in 1893 and 1894. He studied with important scientists like Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen (a disease expert), Wilhelm Wundt (a psychologist), and Emil Kraepelin (a psychiatrist). He returned to Europe in 1897 to continue his studies.
In July 1894, during his trip to Europe, he married Emmy Muench from Basel, Switzerland. They returned to America in November 1894. In May 1895, while he was working at the McLean Hospital, their only child, Susan (Susie) Hoch, was born. Susan later married Lawrence S. Kubie, who also became a well-known psychiatrist. Susan herself studied mental health and helped create one of the first centers for older people with mental health needs in the U.S.
Hoch left McLean Hospital in 1905. He then took a new job at the Bloomingdale Hospital in White Plains, New York. Here, he became very interested in psychoanalysis. This is a way of understanding how our unconscious thoughts and feelings affect our behavior. In 1908, he visited the Burgholzli Mental Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland. There, he worked with Eugen Bleuler and Carl Jung. He learned more about psychoanalysis and a new idea called "schizophrenia," which Bleuler had just described.
In 1909, after four years at Bloomingdale, Hoch was offered the job of director at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He took over from Dr. Adolf Meyer (psychiatrist). A main goal for Hoch was to make the Institute a place where doctors from state hospitals could learn more about mental health. In 1911, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Hoch was also very active in groups for mental health professionals. He was president of the New York Psychiatric Society and the American Psychopathological Society. He also led the American Psychoanalytical Society. He was involved in planning a scientific journal called Psychiatric Bulletin.
Legacy
In 1913, August Hoch was the first to introduce the idea of schizophrenia to leading American doctors. He helped them understand this new way of thinking about mental illness.
Hoch also wrote a book called Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type. It was published after he passed away, as he had asked another psychiatrist to finish it for him.
He retired from the New York State Psychiatric Institute in October 1917 due to poor health and moved to California. He died on September 23, 1919, from a kidney disease in San Francisco, California.
