German psychiatrist

Friedrich Wilhelm Hagen (16 June 1814, Dottenheim – 13 June 1888, Erlangen) was a German psychiatrist. His father, also named Friedrich Wilhelm Hagen (1767–1837), was a noted clergyman.

He studied medicine at the universities Munich and Erlangen, receiving his doctorate in 1836. He worked as a medical practitioner in Velden, and in 1844 visited various mental institutions in England, France and Germany (Siegburg, Illenau, Heidelberg and Winnenthal). In 1846 he began work at the district mental hospital in Erlangen as an assistant to Karl August von Solbrig, and three years later, was named director of the mental hospital at Kloster Irsee near Kaufbeuren. In 1859 he succeeded Solbrig as director of the district mental hospital in Erlangen, and during the following year, was appointed professor of psychiatry at the University of Erlangen.

Along with fellow psychiatrists, Bernhard von Gudden, Hubert von Grashey and Max Hubrich (1837–1896), he was tasked with determining the sanity of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. On 8 June 1886, the four doctors unanimously ruled that Ludwig was most likely mentally unfit to govern. Incredibly, up to that point in time, none of the four had ever personally examined the king as a patient.

Selected works