Christian Friedrich Nasse

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Christian Friedrich Nasse (April 18, 1778 - April 18, 1851 was a German psychiatrist who was born in Bielefeld. He studied medicine at the University of Halle under physiologist Johann Christian Reil (1759-1813), and after graduation was a general practitioner and director of a hospital for the poor at Bielefeld. In 1815 he returned to Halle as a lecturer at the university. From 1819 to 1851 he was a professor at the University of Bonn.

Nasse was a member of the "somatic school" of psychiatry that was popular during the first half of the 19th century in Germany. He believed that diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders depended on investigation of the somatic as well as the psychic activity of a patient. With Maximilian Jacobi (1775-1858) he published a journal concerning the diagnosis of pathological mental disorders called Zeitschrift für Heilung und Beurtheilung krankhafter Seelenstörungen.

In 1818 he founded a journal for psychiatrists called Zeitschrift für psychische Ärzte. The journal was later renamed Jahrbücher für Anthropologie. Nasse was a major advocate of mental health reform, and is credited for introducing the practice of "bedside diagnosis" into the lecture hall at the university.

Associated eponym:
Nasse's law: Law that states that hemophilia occurs only in males but is transmitted through unaffected females.