His father was psychiatrist Johann Baptist Friedreich (1796–1862), and his grandfather was pathologist Nicolaus Anton Friedreich (1761–1836), who is remembered for his early description of idiopathic facial paralysis, which would later be known as Bell's palsy.

[1] In the early part of his career he studied and practiced medicine at the University of Würzburg under the tutelage of noted men such as physiologist Albert von Kölliker and pathologist Rudolf Virchow.

Some of his better known students and assistants included Adolf Kussmaul, Wilhelm Heinrich Erb and Friedrich Schultze.

Friedreich was involved in the establishment of pathological correlations, notably in research of muscular dystrophy, spinal ataxia and brain tumors.

It is a degenerative disease with sclerosis of the spinal cord that affects a person's speech, balance and coordination.