Latest Google Doodle Celebrates Famed Psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach

The name Hermann Rorschach may not ring a bell to most people, but perhaps the words “Rorschach test” might. If you’re thinking “inkblot tests” then you would be correct. Today marks the 129th birthday of the famous Swiss psychiatrist who devised the test to make determinations on a person’s behavior based on the patient’s immediate responses to looking at inkblots.

Google has devised a special “google doodle” for their search engine’s splash page today to commemorate his birthday and contribution to science. Rorschach was born on this day November 8 in the Swiss metropolis of Zürich.

He published his famous text Psychodiagnostik in 1921 which laid out the methodology for administering the inkblot test. By all accounts, it was immediately embraced by the psychiatric community.

Since that time, the tests have been discredited, but that doesn’t mean they were not important. Often times, it takes one perceived breakthrough in science to fuel a new generation of research which leads to proven methods of treatment.

Rorschach died roughly one year after the publication of his book from peritonitis, an inflammation of the tissue lining the inner abdomen and abdominal organs. It is believed that a ruptured appendix may have been the root cause. Rorschach was 37-year-old when he died.

On The Web:

Hermann Rorschach’s Google Doodle celebrates his inkblot test
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/google-doodle/10434860/Hermann-Rorschachs-129th-birthday-remembered-with-a-Google-Doodle.html