5, 1862. His father was
Professor Johann Schnitzler, a renowned Jewish throat specialist. I am
told that _Professor Bernhardi_ in the play of the same name must be
regarded as a pretty faithful portrait of the elder Schnitzler, who,
besides his large and important practice, had many other interests,
including an extensive medical authorship and the editing of the
_Wiener klinische Rundschau_. It is also to be noticed that _Professor
Bernhardi_ has among his assistants a son, who divides his time between
medicine and the composition of waltz music.

The younger Schnitzler studied medicine at the Vienna University, as
did also his brother, and obtained his M.D. in 1885. During the next
two years he was attached to the resident staff of one of the big
hospitals. It was also the period that saw the beginning of his
authorship. While contributing medical reviews to his father's journal,
he was also publishing poems and prose sketches in various literary
periodicals. Most of his contributions from this time appeared in a
publication named "_An der schoenen blauen Donau_" (By the Beautiful
Blue Danube), now long defunct.

He was also continuing his studies, which almost from the start seem to
have turned toward the psychic side of the medical science. The new
methods of hypnotism and suggestion interested him greatly, and in 1889
he published a monograph on "Functional Aphonia and its Treatment by
Hypnotism and Suggestion." In 1888 he made a study trip to England,
during which he wrote a series of "London Letters" on medical subjects
for his father's journal. On his return he settled down as a practicing
physician, but continued to act as his father's assistant. And as late
as 1891-95 we find him named as his father's collaborator on a large
medical work entitled "Clinical Atlas of Laryngology and Rhinology."

There are many signs to indicate uncertainty as to his true calling
during those early years. The ensuing inner conflict was probably
sharpened by some pressure exercised by his father, who seems to have
been anxious that he should turn his energies undividedly to medicine.
To a practical and outwardly successful man like the elder Schnitzler,
his own profession must have appeared by far the more important and
promising. While there is no reason to believe that his attitude in
this matter was aggressive, it must have been keenly felt and, to some
extent at least, resented by the son. One of the dominant notes of the
l