Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben

Ernst von Feuchtersleben (1806 to 1849) was an Austrian physician, poet and philosopher of an old noble family. He entered the University of Vienna to study medicine in 1825, took his doctorate in 1833 and settled in Vienna as a practicing surgeon, while lecturing at the university; in 1844 he was appointed dean of its faculty of medicine. His textbook of medical psychology, published in 1845 and translated into English as The Principles of Medical Psychology, is often credited with an early notable use of the term psychopathy, then meaning mental disorder in a broad sense. He also wrote the popular Dietetics of the Soul and served briefly as under secretary of state for education in 1848 and 1849.