Albert Moll

Born in Lissa, in the Prussian Province of Posen, and later active in Berlin, Albert Moll was a German doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, and sexologist. He is widely described as one of the founders of modern sexology and medical psychology, alongside figures such as Iwan Bloch and Magnus Hirschfeld.

Moll published extensively on subjects that were controversial in his time, including hypnosis, homosexuality, childhood sexuality, sexual desire, and medical ethics. Scholars have noted that he was among the earliest researchers to study hypnosis seriously, and that his books on sexual life were read across Europe in the decades before the First World War.

His reputation faded after his lifetime, in part because he was eclipsed by better-known contemporaries such as Sigmund Freud and Hirschfeld, with whom he had sharp public rivalries. Today, he is remembered as an important but complicated pioneer whose work helped define early scientific debates about sexuality and the mind.