[We're moving closer and closer to the insane asylum...": Modern life and nervous system diseases by Johann CHristian Reil (1759-1813)].

Johann Christian Reil is usually portrayed as a pioneer in the realm of neuroanatomy and psychiatry, and as a pragmatic physician engaged in contemporary problems of social medicine and hygiene. In this article, the connection between these two fields of interest is focused: Reil's ideas on the relation between the "modern" way of life and the occurrence of diseases of the nervous system. The first part of the paper summarizes Reil's statements on the issue, as laid out e.g. in his "Ueber die Erkenntnis und Cur der Fieber" (1802), and in the "Rhapsodieen über die Anwendung der psychischen Curmethode auf Geisteszerrüttungen" (1803). The second part gives an outline of Reil's neurophysiological model of the interaction between the organ of the soul ("Seelenorgan") and the social environment. In the third part, Reil's conceptions of culture, civilisation, and history are investigated. For Reil, madness is not an alienation from reason, but from a postulated healthy state of nature which is located in the past. Modern life causes and steadily increases a contradiction between the needs of the body and those of the soul, resulting in a concomitant tension and irritability of the nerves. Modern culture is thus criticized for its potentially harmful effects on mental health. The balance between physical and mental activities, and the constitution of a decentralized state would be means to prevent the manifestation of the ensuing diseases.