Leopold Treitel

1865-1905

Leopold Treitel was among the few otolaryngologists at the turn of the 19th century who pioneered a new specialty in Germany, one that came to be known as “Speech Doctor” or “Spracharzte”, in German. He, along with Hermann Gutzmann, Raphael Coen and Albert Liebmann specialized in treating children and adults with speech and language disorders. Treitel’s main contributions were in the areas of childhood language disorders (then referred to as congenital aphasia) (Weiner, 1986, Cicchetti & Cohen, 2006), and stuttering (Jones, 1948). Treitel saw deficits in attention and memory as contributory to language disorders in children. He focused on differential diagnosis, distinguishing language disorders from mental retardation and deafness.

References by Treitel (in German)

Treitel, L. (1891) Über die Stimme kleiner Kinder. Z. Physiol 5.

Treitel, L. (1892) Über Sprachstörung und Sprachentwicklung, hauptsächlich auf Grund von Sprachuntersuchungen in den Berliner Kindergärten. Arch. Psychiat. Nervenkrankheiten, 24, 578.

Treitel, L. (1893) Über Aphasie im Kindesalter. Sammlung klinischer Vorträge (Leipzig), New Ser. 64.

Treitel, L. (1904). Mental capacity conditioned by bodily health. In Zeits. fur pad. Psy., 6, 15-140.

Writings about Treitel

Cicchetti, D. & Cohen, D. (2006). Developmental Psychopathology: Volume 3, Risk, disorder and adaption. Wiley and Sons. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Developmental_Psychopathology_Volume_3/UlQjE-Ka09sC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Treitel+speech+doctor&pg=PA270&printsec=frontcover

Jones, Morris Val (1948) Leopold Treitel on stuttering. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 13, 19-22

This 1948 excerpt translated in JSHD was taken from the section on stuttering in a book written by Dr. Leopold Treitel, an ear, nose and throat specialist in Berlin. The book was published in German in 1894 by Verlag von August Hirschwald, Berlin.

Treitel (1894) Storungen der Laut-sprache in Grundriss der Sprachstorungen

Weiner, P. (1986) The study of childhood language disorders: nineteenth century perspectives. Journal of Communication Disorders, 19, 1, 1-47.