Career
In 1897 he received his doctorate from Kiel, and in 1899 went to work at the policlinic of Emanuel Mendel (1839-1907) in Berlin. Kurt Mendel was an editor of Neurologisches Zentralblatt. With Russian neurophysiologist Vladimir Bekhterev (1857-1927), the eponymous Mendel-Bekhterev reflex is named, which is flexion of the toes caused by percussion of the upper surface of the foot, a sign of lesions of the pyramidal tract.
Mendel was a critic of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).
He mentioned that Freud"s psychoanalytical teachings offered a valuable perspective, however he believed that they contained excessive exaggeration and fantasy. He was also repulsed by some aspects of Freud"s views on sexuality.