[Drug therapy of psychiatric patients in the middle of the 19th century: the drug armamentarium of Ludwig Binswanger sen. in his "Asyl Bellevue" ].

This paper examines the drugs used in Ludwig Binswanger's private sanatorium "Bellevue" in Kreuzlingen on the Lake of Constance between 1857 and 1870. The available patient records have revealed the administrated drugs, prescriptions have been transcribed, and the guidelines for the use of the drugs have been reconstructed by means of the literature. It becomes obvious that the armamentarium of drugs prescribed was limited and can be connected with the treatment of physical ailments which the "somatist" Binswanger considered as the main cause for psychic disorders. Binswanger was very careful when prescribing one of the few available "psychotropic" drugs like opium and morphine. This restraint in using drugs is in contrast with many recommendations and habits of Binswanger's contemporaries and shows that he put higher emphasis on the effectiveness of the "therapeutic milieu" than on a pharmacotherapy of insanity.