Physician. He received a place in history with the baffling circumstances surrounding his sudden death. As the private physician of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, he legally declared in 1886 that the king was insane. For years, he and the king had a close patient-physician relationship. A few days later, on the 13th of June, the king and von Gudden went for a walk around Lake Starberg. When they did not return, a search began and the king was found floating face down in knee-deep water with a dead von Gudden next to him. To this day it is uncertain whether their deaths were a murder-suicide, an assassination or accident. The Bavarian constitution did not address what action was to be done if a king was certified as insane, but guidelines were there if the king died. For an unknown reason, no legal autopsy was performed to determine the cause of the King's death, but his death certificated stated "suicide by drowning", yet no water was found in his lungs. Dr. Johnna Bernhard Aloys von Gudden was a psychiatrist and neuroanatomist. He was dedicated to neuro biology and a noted psychiatrist. Born the third of seven sons to a brewmaster, he had a comfortable childhood. In 1841, he began his studies in philosophy and medicine at the university in Bonn, Germany. For his doctoral dissertation, he studied eye movements, received his medical degree in 1848 and passed the state medical examination in Berlin the same year. After serving in the military for one year, he obtained a position at Siegburg Asylum for the insane. Learning all he could from personal experience, he transferred to Illenau Asylum near Achern, the first modern psychiatric hospital in Germany; then he was appointed director of Werneck Hospital, a newly-established asylum in north Bavaria. In October 1869 he became director of the newly founded Bugholzli Psychiatric Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland. As the director of many mental institutions, he was an advocate of the no-restraint policy, humane treatment of the mentally ill, communal social interaction among patients, and having a well-trained medical staff including patient to nurse ratios. In the mid-19th century, these ideas were revolutionary in the treatment of mental health. He became one of the most respected physicians in Germany. In 1870, he was co-editor of "Archives for Psychiatric and Nervous Diseases." Next, he was the director of Upper Bavaria Psychiatric Institute and subsequently became a full professor of psychiatry at the University of Munich. Many well-known scientists have studied under his supervision such as Henri Forel. At the height of his career, he was commissioned to provide psychiatric care for the Bavarian royal family. One of his patients was King Ludwig II. Von Gudden contributed to medical findings of the eye and brain. He made many contributions in the field of neuroanatomy, especially his work of mapping and describing the paths, connections origins and neuroanatomical centers of the brain and the optic nerve network. The commissural fibers of the optic tract are called the "Commissure of Gudden" in honor of him. He developed methods of testing nerves and published an article stating his limitation of this method. In the February of 2007 edition of the professional magazine, "Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry," an article states his pioneer contributions to psychiatry.