Dutch psychiatrist and professor.
Rümke’s father Christian Ludwig Rümke (31 March 1863, Monnickendam- 19 October 1925, Den Haag) was a GP and determined his choice to study medicine at the University of Amsterdam in 1911. On 4 September 1890 he married Cornelia Gerardina Kips (5 May 1865, Den Haag – 29 may 1939, Den Haag) . After graduating as a physician (1918), he specialised in neurology at the Amsterdam Valerius Clinic under the leadership of Prof. Leendert Bouman. Here he met Nelly Catharina Bakker (30 Oct 1889, Goedereede – 25 Oct 1976, Amsterdam), who would become a neurologist, whom he married in 1921. They got two sons and a daughter.
Because Bouman had no promotional right then, on June 5, 1923, Professor Rümke dissertated under Prof. Cornelis Winkler , holder of the Neurology and Psychiatry Chair at the University of Utrecht, at the subject Phaenomenological and Clinical Psychiatric Study on Happiness. His dissertation was the first proper Dutch publication on the use of the phenomenological method in psychiatry and he established his name internationally.
Once again, his mentor Leendert Bouman, who has now been professor in Utrecht, made an important step in Rümke’s career by presenting him in 1933 as a curator of the Utrecht psychiatric and neurological clinic and special professor in developmental psychology. Rümke had already missed a professor’s post three times because he refused to teach only in a particular field (psychology, somatic medicine) because he wanted to integrate both. After the death of Bouman in 1936 his chair was divided and Rümke was asked to cover the chair of psychiatry . During the post-war period, Rümke focused on the location of his field as a result of the many developments in mental health care.
After 198 Rümke got international recognitition. He had posts at the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH), In 1953, Rümke was rector magnificus in Utrecht for a year. Thereafter he has been a guest professor for the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor , USA. Rümke died in 1967 in Zurich during a lecture cycle in Germany and Switzerland .
Besides his medical and scientific career, Rümke was also active as a poet. He approached Albert Verwey, who placed poetry in 1917 in the literary magazine De Beweging. In 1934, under the pseudonym H. Cornelius, the bundle “De afgelegde weg” appeared.
On behalf of the then Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences , he wrote from 1960 till December 1963 an extensive essay about the novel “Van de koele meren des doods” (The Deeps of Deliverance) of the writer of Frederik van Eeden (1860-1932), for which he received the Henriëtte Roland Holst Prize in 1964.
The extensive scientific work “Het wezen van de angst” (The essence of the fear) that the writer Simon Vestdijk completed in 1949 was dedicated to “Rümke, the teacher”. Vestdijk wanted to promote under Rümke, but that never happened. The book was published only in 1968.

Link to Dutch Wikipedia