Sigmund Freud is perhaps one of the most famous doctors to explore the human mind. His research brought a lot of information to the world about how the mind works and why. Sigmund was born on May 6, 1856.
As a very young child, Sigmund had to have a reason for everything. He would never accept an answer that didn’t have information to back it up. Once, an old woman said to Sigmund and his mother that he would grow up to be a great man someday, and although Sigmund took didn’t really believe her, his mother decided he should have nothing but the very best. There was a childhood story that was told over and over again through out the family, kind of a running joke. There was a nanny that watched the children during the day while the parents went to work and ran errands and whatnot. The nanny was far from truthful. She brought the small Jewish children to mass without their parent’s acknowledgement. She was also found stealing money and toys from their home, so when Sigmund’s parents found out, they had her arrested and put in jail quickly. One day when Sigmund was with his half brother, he asked where “Nanny” had gone, and he had replied that she was locked up. There was a large hope chest in his house, so one day when Sigmund was again with his half brother, Phillip, he couldn’t find his mother. So, he went tot Phillip and begged him to let his mother out of the chest because it was locked. Freud led an interesting and somewhat eventful childhood, but his adulthood was more impressing and eventful still.
Freud went to college, unlike many women during that time. He went to the University of Vienna where he was the most energetic student they ever had, or so it was said. Freud took many courses. Among them were: physiology, anatomy, philosophy, physics, botany, chemistry, zoology, mineralogy, and logic (Reef 25). Needless to say, he loved science. He also loved learning the principles of science and the history of ideas (Reef 25). At the University of Vienna, at least 1/3 of the teachers in the medical department were Jewish and the students were mostly Jewish as well. Many Christians had problems with this and argued against hiring more Jewish teachers and “further Judaicizing” the school.
Later in life, Freud was criticized for many things he did. But he took them well, and did not allow them to change him. He stood tall even though it seemed like everyone was pulling him down.
At the very end of his life, before his seventieth birthday, he wrote, “Looking back, then, over the patchwork of my life’s labors, I can say that I have made many beginnings and thrown out many suggestions. Something will come of them in the future, though I cannot tell myself whether it will be much or little. I can, however, express a hope that I have opened up a pathway for an important advance in our knowledge.” Now, reading of him in many books, I can say that he made a huge difference and I’m quite sure he would agree.