William Lorenz
| William F. Lorenz, M.D. | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 15, 1882 New York City |
| Died | February 19, 1958 (age 76) Madison, Wisconsin |
| Residence | Madison, Wisconsin |
| Citizenship | US |
| Nationality | US |
| Fields | Psychiatry & Psychopharmacology |
| Institutions | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| Alma mater | New York University School of Medicine |
| Academic advisors | Adolf Meyer |
| Known for | Research in neurology and psychiatry; Meritorious Military Service in World War I |
| Notable awards | U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal |
William F. Lorenz (February 15, 1882 – February 19, 1958) was a Major (O4) in the United States Army Medical Corps during World War I. He was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal for his combat actions in France, and had previously served a tour of duty during the Spanish–American War in 1898. Lorenz was also a prominent faculty member at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison, Wisconsin, in the department of Neuropsychiatry. He remained in the U.S. Army National Guard after his service in Europe, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel (O5).
His governmental citation from 1918 reads as follows:
Lorenz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1882, and received his M.D. from New York University School of Medicine in 1903. He took postgraduate training in neuropsychiatry at the Manhattan State Hospital in New York, and completed a fellowship in that discipline with Adolf Meyer in Illinois from 1908 to 1910. Lorenz joined the faculty in the department of neuropsychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison, Wisconsin in 1910, and remained there for the rest of his career, except for a two-year leave of absence to serve in the military during World War I. He was a Professor of Neuropsychiatry and chief of the Wisconsin Psychiatric Institute in the late 1920s and 1930s. Lorenz is credited, along with William Bleckwenn, with developing the technique of sodium amytal-mediated disinhibition ("narcosynthesis" or "narcoanalysis"), which allowed psychiatrists to probe the minds of psychotic patients for diagnostic information. Along with colleagues, he also developed a relatively effective treatment for neurosyphilis using an arsenic compound called tryparsamide. Lorenz collaborated with physiologists and pharmacologists on methods to break catatonic mutism; these studies, which were sporadically but dramatically successful, used dilute intravenous solutions of sodium cyanide and the inhalation of carbon dioxide.
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