Sigmund Freud, das ›Cocain‹ und die Morphinisten: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen und klinischen Praxis im Umgang mit Suchtmitteln (1850-1890)

Zusammenfassung: Das neue Arzneimittel »Cocain« wurde Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts breit erforscht. Besonders im Rahmen der europäischen Cocain-Forschung hat Sigmund Freud eine zentrale Rolle gespielt, wie eine kontextualisierende Vorgehensweise zeigt. Freuds

Summary: Sigmund Freud, cocaine and the morphinists. A contribution to the history of the scientific and clinical practice of dealing with narcotics. In the late 19th century, cocaine, a new drug was broadly investigated. Sigmund Freud played a major role in this research, as is shown in this article. To this end, national research traditions since 1850 are studied and, in this context, Freud's research on cocaine (1884-1887) is considered. In the second part of the present article, one type of experiments is singled out for further investigation of its theoretical underpinnings, methods, and epistemology: the clinical trials on morphine addicts with cocaine, inspired by Freud and performed by resident physicians in German-speaking Europe in the 1880th. Based on their written accounts and published scientific articles, research practices in clinical observation, interpretation, and presentation are reconstructed and compared. Thereby, Freud's innovative potential becomes apparent as well as the extent to which Freud sticks to his ages’ contemporary scientific practices.