This paper gives an overview of runner-up candidates in the field of psychiatry for the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine and provides a detailed account of the Nobel Prize nominations for Emil Kraepelin. Kraepelin was nominated for the Nobel Prize on at least eight occasions from 1909 to 1926. Among the sponsors, we find psychiatrists and neurologists such as Robert Gaupp, Ernst Meyer, Eugen Bleuler, Oswald Bumke, Giovanni Mingazzini, and Wilhelm Weygandt. Portraying Kraepelin as a Nestor of psychiatry, the nominators meant that his work was of theoretical importance and that they also liberated the way for new areas of research. However, the proposals remained half-hearted and lacked clear practical results or solid evidence, which in the end weakened Kraepelin’s Nobelibility, i.e. his eligibility for the award.
Ackerknecht, E. H. (1968) A short history of medicine. New York: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Anon. (1906) “A British Nobel Prize”. British Medical Journal Dec 8, 1667–1668.
Alexander, F. G. and S. T. Selesnick (1966) The history of psychiatry: an evaluation of psychiatric thought & practice from prehistoric times to the present (Master Work Series). New York: Harper & Row.
Allik, J. (1998) “Thoughts about the quality of social sciences in Estonia”. Trames, 2, 91–107.
Burgmair, W. G., E. J. Engstrom, and M. M. Weber (2000–2008) Emil Kraepelin. 7 vols. Munich: Belleville.
Engstrom, E. J. (2003) Clinical psychiatry in Imperial Germany: a history of psychiatric practice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Ersch and Gruber (1829) Allgemeine Encyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste in alphabetischer Folge 2. Section, 5. Teil H-N, Leipzig.
Gerhard, U. J., A. Schönberg, and B. Blanz (2005) “If Berger had survived the second world war – hecertainly would have been a candidate for the Nobel Prize. Hans Berger and the legend of the Nobel Prize”. Fortschritte der Neurologie Psychiatrie 73, 3, 156–160.
https://doi.org/10.1055/s-2004-830086
Hansson, N. (2015) “Karl Sudhoff und der Nobelpreis”. Medizinhistorisches Journal 50, 4, 393–400.
Hansson, N., and T. Schlich (2015) “Why did Alfred Blalock and Helen Taussig not receive the Nobel Prize?” Journal of Cardiac Surgery 30, 6, 506–509.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jocs.12552
Hansson, N., M. Martin, and H. Fangerau (2016) “The Nobel Prize runner-up Leopold Freund and the origin of radiotherapy”. Radiotherapy and Oncology 119, 3, 552.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radonc.2016.04.021
Hansson, N., and H. Fangerau (2016) “Tracing Emil Kraepelin in the Nobel Prize archive”. World Psychiatry 15, 2, 189.
https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20315
Huerkamp, C. (1985) Der Aufstieg der Ärzte im 19. Jahrhundert: vom gelehrten Stand zum professionellen Experten; das Beispiel Preußens. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
https://doi.org/10.13109/9783666357275
Kolle, K. (1956–1963) “Emil Kraepelin.” In Große Nervenärzte, 1, 175–186. Stuttgart: Thieme.
Kraepelin, E. (1987) Memoirs. Berlin, Heidelberg, and New York: Springer-Verlag.
Livingstone, D. (2015) Transhumanism: the history of a dangerous idea. US: Sabilillah Publications.
Liljestrand, G. (1951) “The Prize in Physiology or Medicine”. In H. Schück et al., eds. Nobel – the Man and his Prizes, 135–316. Amsterdam.
Nobelprize.org. The official web site of the Nobel Prize. Available online at <https:// www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/>. Accessed on 01.10.2016.
Norrby, E. (2010) Nobel Prizes and life sciences. New Jersey: World Scientific.
https://doi.org/10.1142/7677
Lindberg, B. S. (2013) Salomon Eberhard Henschen: en biografi. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
Merton, R. (1979) The sociology of science: an episodic memoir. Carbondale: University of Southern Illinois Press.
Passione, R. (2004) “Italian psychiatry in an international context: Ugo Cerletti and the case of electroshock”. History of Psychiatry 15, 1, 83–104.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X04039347
Roelcke, V. (2003) “Unterwegs zur Psychiatrie als Wissenschaft: Das Projekteiner ‘Irrenstatistik’ und Emil Kraepelins Neuformulierung der psychiatrischen Klassifikation”. In: E. J. Engstrom and V. Roelcke, eds. Psychiatrie im 19. Jahrhundert. Forschungen zur Geschichte von psychiatrischen Institutionen, Debatten und Praktiken im deutschen Sprachraum, 169–188. Basel: Schwabe & Co.
Stolt, C. M. (2001) “Why did Freud never receive the Nobel Prize?” International Forum of Psychoanalysis 10, 3–4, 221–226.
https://doi.org/10.1080/08037060152740142
Stolt, C. M. (2002) “Moniz, lobotomy, and the 1949 Nobel Prize”. In E. Crawford, ed. Historical Studies in the Nobel Archives: The Prizes in Science and Medicine, 79–93. Tokyo: Universal Academy Press.
Schmuhl, H.-W. and V. Roelcke (2013) ‘Heroische Therapien’. Die deutsche Psychiatrie im internationalen Vergleich, 1918–1945. Göttingen: Wallstein.
Weisz, G. (2005) Divide and Conquer: a comparative history of medical specialization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weygandt, W. (1927) “Emil Kraepelin”. Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie 85, 443–458.
Whitrow, M. (1993) Julius Wagner-Jauregg (1857–1940). London: Smith-Gordon.
Zuckerman, H. (1977) Scientific Elite. Nobel Laureates in the United States. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
