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In these years falls also the beginning of Freud's interest in psychopathology, a theme reserved for the following chapter.
When he got engaged he had to instruct Martha, who was probably rather vague about his activities, to distinguish between what he called his chemical Pantscherei (‘messing about’) and his histological Guckerei (‘peering’). The former investigations he continued for a while after he had interrupted the latter ones.
In his first hospital year Freud gave no indications of a wish to specialize, although his previous researches on the nervous system must have been still in his mind. He was entirely preoccupied with adapting himself to the life in a hospital and with the constant problem of how he could—at first surreptitiously—snatch a few minutes' interview with his betrothed. When he thought of the future it was more of settling in a provincial town or abroad than of a career in Vienna.
When, however, in May, 1883, he was appointed junior Sekundararzt in Meynert's department he was brought nearer to disorders of the brain, and towards the middle of the month he obtained Meynert's permission to work in his laboratory.1 At first it was a matter of making and studying preparations, but at the beginning of July he proposed to Holländer that they should make together an extensive study of the new-born brain, one that would take at least a year.2 Holländer, who was an agreeable person, had a good knowledge of the anatomy of the brain and held the position of Assistant to Meynert; he used to lecture in place of Meynert in the latter's absence. Freud expected that the research would bring him a Docentship and thus lift him out of the ruck. So his hopes were already pointing in the direction of neurology.
Holländer soon tired of the immense task of examining the thousands of slides, and when it came to his merely dropping