Julius Wagner-Jauregg was an Austrian psychiatrist whose experimental work in the first part of the twentieth century led to a new appreciation of the beneficial effects of bodily stress in the treatment of mental illness. In 1927 he became the first psychiatrist to win the Nobel Prize for his discovery that syphilis, a chronic, usually venereal disease caused by spirochete bacteria, could be cured by clinically induced malaria, which is characterized by symptoms of fever and chills.

Wagner-Jauregg was born Julius Wagner on March 7, 1857, in the village of Wels, Austria. He was the oldest son of Ludovika Ranzoni and Adolf Johann Wagner, a government official. The family name became "Wagner von Jauregg" when Adolf Johann was raised to the nobility, but following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918, the "von" was dropped. After the early death of his mother, Julius Wagner-Jauregg was raised at home. In his youth...