Heinrich Philipp August Damerow

Heinrich Philipp August Damerow (28 December 1798 – 22 September 1866) was a German psychiatrist born in Stettin, Province of Pomerania, Prussia (today Szczecin, Poland).

He continued his education in Paris, where he studied under Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol, and at the Siegburg asylum north of Bonn, where he met with Carl Wigand Maximilian Jacobi.

In 1830 he became an associate professor, and in 1836 was appointed director of Provinzial-Irrenanstalt (district mental asylum) near Halle.

Two of his better-known assistants at the asylum were Rudolf Leubuscher (1822-1861) and Heinrich Laehr (1820-1905).

He was an advocate of an holistic approach to treating mental illness, and felt that a physician must view the patient as a union of body, mind and soul.