in civilization created more madness. He saw this as due not to physical lesions in the brain or to hereditary evil, but as a disturbance in the harmony of the mind's functions (forms of awareness or presence), rooted in the nervous system. Reil also wrote on Blumenbach's idea of the Bildungstrieb (literally, "building power"), a vital force within each organism that compels it to create, maintain, and repair its form. In Reil's essay "Von der Lebenskraft," he argued that each organism contained a "dormant germ" that was activated by the addition of the father's "animal force." Reil died on 22 November 1813 from typhus contracted while treating the wounded in the Battle of Leipzig, later known as the Battle of the Nations, one of the most severe confrontations of the Napoleonic Wars. See also Emil Kraepelin Kurt Schneider References Sources Marneros, Andreas (2005): Das Wort Psychiatrie wurde in Halle geboren. External links Johann Christian Reil, Dictionary of Eighteenth Century German Philosophers Reil, Johann Christian (1803) External links 1759 births 1813 deaths People from Leer (district) German psychiatrists 18th-century German physicians German anatomists German physiologists German people of the Napoleonic Wars German military doctors Academic staff of the University of Halle Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin