C. Friedrich
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military drug officer in the garrison hospital of Innsbruck, which he soon quitted in
September already. He gave up his position in the Ministry of Public Labour after
two hours of work. Instead, he applied for a job as a pharmacy officer in the
Ministry of War, got the job and had to check columns of numbers all day. Trakl
was on sick leave and considered returning to the military. He applied for positions
in the dispensaries of Vienna.
Even though his friends had given him lots of support, he proved himself
incapable of living. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) – who had
also been industrialist at that time – had offered a large amount of money to Trakl
and Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926). Trakl should have received 20.000 Kronen
(200.000 Mark) that would have eased his financial difficulties for a long period.
Yet, he was unable to fetch the money, an stood trembling in front of the bank.
Fairly at the beginning of World War I, Trakl was conscripted into the army
in October 1914. After strenuous marches through Galicia he experienced the
Battle of Gródekto which he dedicated his last poem. He had to take care of 90
seriously wounded people almost without medicine in a barn. Trakl suffered from
a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide, but his comrades took his gun away.
Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to a garrison hospital in Kraków, as he
believed in order to work as a military pharmacist. Indeed he was brought to the
psychiatric department for the observation of his mental state. One of his friends
reported that Trakl had lost the will to live. On November 3
rd
1914 Trakl died of a
cocaine overdose, presumably because he wanted to end his life.
Trakl was buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków, in 1925 his mortal
remains were transferred to the Mühlau Cemetery near Innsbruck. Trakl proved to
be unable to lead a normal life, but he was capable of lyricism of enduring value
under the most difficult circumstances. He wrote poems full of melancholia and
mortal eroticism which illustrate his groping for myth and faith. Although he felt
an inner distance towards the profession of a pharmacist, he has worked for a
considerable part of his life as such (14).
PHARMACISTS AS VISUAL ARTISTS
Being involved in visual arts is not too far away from working as a
pharmacist because either require precise observation of nature. Pharmacists
must be able to recognize drugs or medicinal plants and identity them accurately.
Consequently, some pharmacists directly illustrated natural objects, for instance
Gottlieb Wilhelm Bischoff (1797–1854), professor in Heidelberg, who originally
intended to become a painter. Apart from his occupation as a botanist he created
paintings of high artistic value, for example for Carl Philipp Martius’ (1794–1862)
writing ‘Nova genera et species plantarum, quas in itinere per Brasiliam’ (15).
