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Background: With reference to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD), a fundamental change in psychiatric care in Germany was proposed in 2019 by Zinkler and von Peter, supported by a legal perspective from Kammeier, which has since led to controversial debates. Essentially, the aim is not only to reduce coercion in psychiatry to a minimum, but also to fundamentally exclude it in a psychiatry that only provides care. The function as an agent of social control is to be returned from psychiatry to state institutions. Psychiatric hospitals will only admit patients with their consent; patients who refuse therapy will not be admitted regardless of their capacity for self-determination and will remain untreated or, if they have committed a criminal offence or threaten to commit a criminal offence, they will be taken into custody or imprisoned in accordance with the legal regulations applicable to all people. There they will receive psychiatric care if they so wish. Aim of the paper: The paper outlines the background of this concept, including international sources, traces the discussion in German specialist literature and takes a critical look at it. Results: The criticism is primarily directed against the fact that responsibility for a relevant proportion of psychiatric patients would be handed over to the police and judiciary and that, as a result, two realities of care would be established that would considerably differ in terms of quality. Conclusion: Arguments are put forward in favor of retaining the function of social control and considerations are suggested as to how caring coercion can be largely minimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the 17 Nobel Prize nominations for the neurologist and neurosurgeon Otfrid Foerster (1873–1941). Drawing on files from the Stockholm Nobel Prize Archive, primary and secondary literature, it addresses the following questions: what were the reasons given by nominators for Foerster's nominations? What was the relationship between him and his nominators? Why was he ultimately not awarded the Nobel Prize? Most nominators of Foerster's highlighted as the main motive his Handbuch der Neurologie, which he had edited with Oswald Bumke. According to the nominators, this book together with Foerster's neurosurgical work had an enormous impact on contemporary neurology. Furthermore, his "honorable character" was underlined in the nomination letters; however, these reasons were not sufficient for the Nobel Committee: the members classified the handbook as not being original research. Despite this, Foerster's fame is reflected in the present, for example in the Otfrid Foerster Medal, which has been awarded to researchers by the German Society of Neurosurgery since 1953. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]