Karl Beringer’s biographic vignette

by Antonio E. Nardi

Karl Beringer was born June 24, 1893, in Ühlingen, Germany. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine, Heidelberg University. Beringer was on the faculty of Karl Willmans’ Department of Psychiatry and worked at the Heidelberg University Clinic, from 1920 to 1933.  He pioneered research in experimental (model) psychoses and in 1927 he reported on the psychopathology induced by mescaline, in 1929, on the psychopathology induced by harmin and, in 1932, on the psychopathology induced by haschisch. Beringer was a pioneer in the study of the psychopathology of experimental drug-induced psychosis. In 1928, with K. Hansen, W. Mayer-Gross and E. Straus, he founded the journal “Nervenarzt”. In 1934, Beringer succeeded Alfred Hoche as professor of psychiatry at the University of Freiburg. Kurt Beringer died August 11, 1949, in Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany (Yung 1949). He was 56 years old. 

Beringer K. Der Meskalinrausch. Berlin: Springer; 1927.

Beringer K. Zur Banisterin-und Harminfrage. Nervenarzt 1929; 2:548–9.

Beringer K..Zur Klinik des Haschischrausches. Nervenarzt 1932; 5: 33-41.

Yung R. Kurt Beringer. Archiv fur Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten 1949; 183: 293-301.

Antonio E. Nardi

May 28, 2015