ROTHSCHILD, FRIEDRICH SALOMON

ROTHSCHILD, FRIEDRICH SALOMON (Sally ; 1899–1995), psychiatrist. Rothschild was born in Giessen near Frankfurt. In 1925 he joined Frieda *Fromm-Reichmann in her psychiatric sanatorium in Heidelberg, where he studied psychoanalysis and was analyzed by Erich *Fromm. From the beginning of his career, Rothschild was concerned with problems of mind-body relations, especially the relation between emotions, perceptions, and thought of man and his central nervous system.

His first paper, written at the age of 23 (published in 1924), was concerned with the dysfunction of the brain in psychotic and neurotic states ("Die primaere Insuffizienz der nervoesen Organe"). He became increasingly dissatisfied with contemporary concepts in psychiatry and neurology, as far as their usefulness to problems of mind-body relations were concerned. Under the influence of Ludwig Klages, creator of modern graphology, Rothschild's study extended to the fields of the science of expression: mime, pantomime, physiognomy and graphology. His book Symbolik des Hirnbaus (1935; "The Symbolism of Brain Structure") is built upon these ideas, and a later work, Das Zentralnervensystem als Symbol des Erlebens (1958), related these theories to developments in science such as cybernetics, neurophysiology, and communications theory.

Rothschild went to Palestine in 1936. In 1948 he became associated with Lipman *Halpern in the department of neurology at the Hebrew University. In 1955 he was appointed clinical associate professor of psychiatry.

[Louis Miller]