Richard von Krafft-Ebing

August 14, 1840 – December 22, 1902) was an Austro-German sexologist and psychiatrist. He wrote Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), a notable series of case studies of the varieties of human sexual behaviour. The book remains well known for making mainstream the terms sadism (from Marquis de Sade whose fictional writings often include brutal sexual practices) and masochism (from writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch,^[2] whose partly autobiographical novel Venus in Furs tells of the protagonist's desire to be whipped and enslaved by a beautiful woman). He was also the first to use the terms homosexual and heterosexual. Baron von Krafft-Ebing was born in Mannheim, Baden, Germany. He was educated in Heidelberg and studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg.
After graduating in medicine and completing his specialization in psychiatry, Krafft-Ebing worked in several asylums. He soon grew disappointed with their workings and decided to pursue a more academic vocation. He subsequently became a professor at Strasbourg, Graz, and Vienna, and a forensic expert at the Austro-Hungarian capital. He popularized psychiatry, giving public lectures on the subject and theatrical demonstrations of the power of hypnotism.

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