Background

Carl Georg Lange was born on December 4, 1834, in Vordingborg, Denmark. His father, Frederik Lange, was a professor of education at Copenhagen University; his mother, the former Louise Paludan-Miiller, came from a learned family.

Education

After graduating from the Copenhagen Metropolitan School in 1853, Lange studied medicine at Copenhagen University; he received the Doctor of Medicine degree in 1859.

In 1867-1868 he studied histology in Zurich and experimental physiology in Florence with Moritz Schiff, who in 1856 had demonstrated the vasoconstrictor fibers in the cervical sympathetic segment. Schiff aroused Lange’s interest in vasomotor reactions and in neurophysiology.

Career

From 1859 to 1867 Lane worked as an intern in the medical departments of the Royal Frederiks Hospital and the Almindelig Hospital in Copenhagen. He published studies on ulcerous endocarditis and typhoid fever and an excellent description of the symptomatology and occurrence of rheumatic fever based on 1,900 cases. In 1863 Lange was sent to Greenland and reported on the widespread distribution of tuberculosis there. At Florence, Lange published an experimental study concerning curare’s influence on the nervous system.

After his return to Copenhagen, Lange was a prosector at the Royal Frederiks Hospital and municipal health officer; he also had a private practice. In 1866 he had become co-editor of Hospitalstidende, in which many of his pioneer studies were published. In 1866 he was the first to describe acute bulbar paralysis; in 1870 he wrote on symptoms arising from cerebellar tumors; and in 1872 he demonstrated the secondary degeneration of the posterior columns of the spinal cord caused by spinal meningitis, thereby anticipating the later neuron doctrine. His discovery was unnoticed until 1894 when Jean Nageotte made the same findings; it was fully accepted in 1897 in C. W. Nothnagel’s Internal Pathology. In 1873 Lange published his anatomical-clinical investigations on chronic myelitis, dividing the syndromes into those of the anterior horns with atrophy, in the lateral tracts with paraplegia and in the posterior tracts with root pains and ataxia. It was a very clear and really new point of view - but because it was written in Danish, it did not obtain the distribution and significance it deserved.

From 1869 to 1872 Lange lectured at Copenhagen University on the pathology of the spinal cord. The lectures were published as Forelaesninger over rygmarvens patologi, which contains physiologically inspired descriptions of the various syndromes of paralysis, sensibility disturbances, and reflex phenomena. There are chapters on pain, hyperesthesia, and eccentric perceptions. His ideas of reflex pain, angina pectoris, and projected pain were later emphasized by Head and Wernoe.

In 1873 Lange failed to obtain the position of physician-in-chief in medicine at the Royal Frederiks Hospital, but 1875 he was appointed lecturer in pathological anatomy and in 1885 became professor of the subject at Copenhagen University. Despite very bad working conditions he continued scientific studies, most of them based on extensive clinical material from his private practice with nervous patients. In 1885 he published Om Sindsbevaegelser, a psychophysiological study on vasomotor disturbances and conditioned reflexes during periods of emotional stress. Excitement was the result of vasomotor manifestations and not of mental entities - a theory still known by psychologists as the James-Lange theory.

In 1886 Lange published Periodiske depressions-lilstande, which separated periodic depressive conditions from the neurasthenic. In 1899 Lange published Bidrag til nydelsernes fysiologi, a study of the pleasurable sensations in emotions.

Lange was a member of several committees for public hygiene and hospital service and of the City Council, and also served as a secretary-general of the International Congress of Physicians held at Copenhagen in 1884.

Achievements

• Carl Georg Lange went down in history as a prominent physician, best known for his contributions to the fields of neurology, psychiatry, and psychology. He is particularly remembered for his work On Emotions: A Psycho-Physiological Study, where he posited that all emotions are developed from, and can be reduced to, physiological reactions to stimuli. The theory became known as the James-Lange theory of emotion.
  
  As a member of committees for public hygiene and hospital service, Lange procured reforms in vaccination, school hygiene, hospital buildings, and water supply.
  
  As secretary-general of the International Congress of Physicians held at Copenhagen, he made possible the meeting of such people as Pasteur, Virchow, James Paget, and Donders with the rather provincial Danish medical profession.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Die genütsbewegungen, ihr wesen und ihr einfluss auf körperliche, besonders auf krankhafte lebenserscheinungen 1910
  • Ueber Gemüthsbewegungen 1887
  • The Emotions 1895
  • Om Sindsbevaegelser 1885

Views

Lange believed the depressions were caused by uric acid diathesis, and his theory was attacked not only by psychiatrists but also by internists. His ideas found several defenders, however, especially in France.

His book Bidrag til nydelsernes fysiologi met with indignation - his explanations of vasomotor reactions during sympathetic reactions to the perception of beauty disturbed the ideas of aesthetes and philosophers.

Connections

Lange probably was married, but nothing is known about his family.

Father:

Frederik Lange

Mother:

Louise Paludan-Miiller

teacher:

Moritz Schiff

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Volume 7
  1973