Emil Kraepelin

Emil Wilhelm Georg Magnus Kraepelin (German: [ˈeːmiːl 'kʁɛːpəliːn]; 15 February 1856 – 7 October 1926) was a German psychiatrist. Fellow psychiatrist Hans Eysenck's Encyclopedia of Psychology identified him as partially responsible for laying the foundations of modern scientific psychiatry, psychopharmacology, and psychiatric genetics.

Kraepelin believed the chief origin of psychiatric disease to be a combination of biological process and genetic disorder or malfunction. Kraepelin's theories dominated psychiatry at the start of the 20th century and, despite the later psychodynamic influence of Sigmund Freud and his disciples, enjoyed a revival at the 20th century's end. While he proclaimed his own high clinical standards of gathering information "by means of expert analysis of individual cases", he also drew on reported observations of officials not trained in psychiatry.

Kraepelin's textbooks do not contain detailed medical case histories of individuals, instead offering mosaic-like compilations of typical statements and behaviors from patients with a specific diagnosis. Kraepelin has been described as a "scientific manager" and "political operator" who developed "a large-scale, clinically oriented, epidemiological research programme".

Some of Kraepelin's theories were considered racist or discriminatory by some.