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Hans AspergerAustrian pediatrician and psychiatrist
Date of Birth: 18.02.1906
Country:  Austria |
Content:
Biography of Hans Asperger
Hans Asperger was an Austrian pediatrician and psychiatrist, after whom Asperger's syndrome is named. He was born on a farm near Vienna and was the eldest of three brothers (the middle one died shortly after birth, and the youngest one perished during the Battle of Stalingrad). As a child, Asperger was introverted but showed a talent for languages at an early age. In the 1920s, he was involved in youth movements. After finishing high school, he studied medicine in Vienna and completed his doctoral dissertation in 1931. He then became an assistant at the pediatric clinic of the University of Vienna, where he eventually led the therapeutic-pedagogical department from 1932. One of his patients was the future writer Elfriede Jelinek.
In 1934, Asperger moved to Leipzig and began working at a psychiatric hospital. He married Hanna Kalmon in 1935, and they had five children together. It is uncertain what Asperger's activities were at the beginning of World War II, but he later served as a military doctor in Croatia. In 1944, Asperger published the first description of the syndrome that would later be named after him, which he referred to as "autistic psychopathy." In the same year, he obtained a permanent position at the University of Vienna, where he held the chair of pediatrics for twenty years and became the director of the Vienna Children's Clinic in 1946. He also worked in Innsbruck and, starting in 1964, led the SOS-Kinderdorf (SOS Children's Village) in Hinterbrühl. Asperger continued his work until the end and even gave lectures six days before his death.
Harmony in Life
Throughout his life, Asperger published over 300 works, with the main topics being "autistic psychopathy" and death. Since his publications were in German and received little translation, his work initially did not gain much recognition. It was only in the 1990s that Asperger's syndrome became widely known among specialists.
