Freud

            On May 6, 1856, Sigisimund Freud was born in Freiburg Moravia, which is now known as the Czech Republic, to Jacob and Amalia Freud. (He would change his name to Sigmund at age 22.) The family lived in Freiburg for 3 years but because of an economical crisis that ruined his father's business, they were forced to move to Vienna in 1859.
             In 1865, he was accepted to secondary school one year early. At age 17, he received a summa cum lade at his high school graduation. He was already able to read in many different languages.
             Although his original dream was to become a lawyer, he decided to go to medical school based on the influence of Ludwig Boerne's writings and Goethe's scientific investigations. He conducted his first personal research in Trieste at age 19 and he then joined the laboratory of John Brucke. In 1877, he published his first official research results. This was based on the anatomy of the central nervous system of a larva. In 1878, his research in Brucke's laboratory brought him only one step away from the discovery of the neuron (which was eventually discovered in 1891 by Waldeyer). .
             By age 30, he still did not graduated from college and had no interest in dedicating himself to medicine. He would rather have done research or teaching. .
             At age 35, he received a delayed doctorate in medicine. "Unwilling to give up his experimental work, however, he remained at the university as a demonstrator in the physiological laboratory". In 1883, he started to begin medical practice. He worked at the General Hospital of Vienna in the psychiatry and dermatology departments and also with nervous diseases. He then spent 19 weeks in Paris to study under neurologist Jean Charcot - the director of the mental clinic. This gave Freud a large influence in developing research in psychopathology.
             In 1886, he started a private practice in Vienna that focused on nervous disease. Other medical doctors in Vienna gave Freud numerous problems because he practiced with Charcot's "unorthodox views on hysteria and hypnotherapy".