author
Auguste Forel
1848–1931
A Swiss scientist with an unusually wide range, he helped shape modern thinking about the brain while also becoming one of the great early experts on ants. His life joined psychiatry, neuroanatomy, natural history, and social reform in ways that still make him a fascinating figure.
3 Audiobooks
Sexual ethics
by Auguste Forel
About the author
Born in Switzerland in 1848, Auguste Forel studied medicine at the University of Zürich and went on to build a major career in psychiatry and brain research. He became director of the Burghölzli psychiatric hospital in Zürich, where his work on the structure of the nervous system helped make him an important early figure in neurology and psychiatry.
Forel was equally famous for his lifelong study of ants. As a myrmecologist, he described many species and wrote influential works that brought careful scientific observation to the social life of insects. That unusual combination of psychiatrist and ant specialist made him one of the more memorable scholars of his era.
He also wrote on psychology, hypnotism, alcoholism, and sexology, and he was active in social causes and peace advocacy. Some parts of his legacy are now viewed critically, especially his support for eugenic ideas, so he is remembered today as both a significant scientific pioneer and a complex, controversial historical figure.