Background
Lorenz, William Frederick was born on February 15, 1882 in New York City. Son of Herman and Elise (Kuenzlen) Lorenz.
psychiatrist military physician
Lorenz, William Frederick was born on February 15, 1882 in New York City. Son of Herman and Elise (Kuenzlen) Lorenz.
Trinity School, New York City. New York University, 2 years. New York University and Bellevue Hospital.
Medical College, Doctor of Medicine, 1903.
Lorenz was also a prominent faculty member at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison, Wisconsin, in the department of Neuropsychiatry. His governmental citation from 1918 reads as follows:
127, and while in personal charge of the Triage (sorting station for wounded) of the 32d Division during the combat activities of that Division on the Marne, Oise-Aisne, and in the Meuse-Argonne, Major Lorenz so displayed indefatigable zeal and exceptionally good judgment in sorting, caring for, and evacuating thousands of wounded as to directly result in the saving of many lives. Lorenz was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1882, and received his Doctor of Medicine 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.
Member Medical Council United States Veterans’ Bureau, since 1923. Served in Spanish-American War 7 months, 1898. Member American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, Association Republican.
Member Christian Church.
Married Ada Holt, May 21, 1915. Children: Adrian Holt Vanderveer, William Frederick, Thomas Holt, Paul Kuenzlen, Joseph Dean.