Friedrich Groos

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Friedrich Groos (1768–1852) was a German doctor and philosopher born in Karlsruhe. He began by studying law in Tübingen and Stuttgart, but later chose medicine. From 1792 he studied medicine in Freiburg and Pavia, and after graduation he became the city physician in Karlsruhe. Between 1805 and 1813 he worked as a doctor in several places, and in 1814 he became senior physician at the asylum in Pforzheim. When the Pforzheim mental asylum moved to Heidelberg in 1826, he relocated there and lectured on psychiatry at the university. Groos wrote on philosophy, forensic medicine, psychiatry and related topics. During a period of serious illness he grew interested in Stoic philosophy, and he believed mental illness arose from both spiritual and mental causes.