William F. Lorenz, a nationally renowned neuropsychiatrist, was born in New York City on February 15, 1882, the son of Hermann and Elsie Kuenzlen Lorenz. He attended Trinity School and New York University. After his freshman year he served as a volunteer with a group of students from the university during the Spanish-American War. In 1903 he received his medical degree from New York University and then interned at St. Mary's Hospital, Long Island from 1903 to 1905. After leaving a position as assistant physician at the Manhattan State Hospital, New York in 1910, he moved to Wisconsin to become clinical director of the Wisconsin State Hospital at Mendota. Lorenz spent 1914 on leave with the U.S. Public Health Service researching pellagra in the southern United States but returned to Madison in 1915 to become both associate professor of neuropsychiatry at the university and the first director of the Wisconsin Psychiatric Institute. Lorenz set up the institute in a vacant carpentry shop on the grounds of the state hospital. Shortly thereafter, it moved to Farwell's Point. In 1920 Lorenz was promoted to a full professorship at the university. In 1925 the institute became part of the university, and established its free testing service for Wisconsin physicians. Lorenz continued as a professor and director of the Wisconsin Psychiatric Institute until his retirement in 1952.
Lorenz's other professional activities included an appointment as head of the State Board of Control, 1924-1925. During World War I he commanded the 127th Field Hospital unit of the 32nd division in France. The system he devised for evacuation of wounded soldiers gained him a Distinguished Service Medal. Lorenz was colonel and chief surgeon in the Wisconsin National Guard from 1927 to the late 1940s. After both World War I and World War II Lorenz became active in the rehabilitation of disabled servicemen in Wisconsin. In 1921 he was a leader in the establishment of the Wisconsin Memorial Hospital for the treatment of ex-servicemen. He also served as a psychiatric consultant to the National Rehabilitation Committee of the American Legion and to the Veterans Administration.
Lorenz's research contributions to medicine were considerable, and he was well known as a pioneer in preventive psychiatry and in the treatment of mental disease with drugs. With A. S. Loevenhart, he developed the use of tryparsamine in treating neurosyphilis, and he played a key role in the development of blood sampling to detect syphilis. He also studied the use of carbon dioxide gas in the treatment of psychosis. Using sodium amytal in the treatment of mental disorders, Lorenz made the important discovery that patients afflicted with catatonic schizophrenia experienced lucid intervals. Other research concerned the use of sodium pentathol as a diagnostic tool.
Lorenz married Ada Holt in 1915. They had four sons: William F., Jr. (1919-1964), Thomas H., Paul K., and Joseph D., as well as a stepson, Adrian Vanderveer. Two years after his wife's death in 1942, Lorenz married Marvel Griffin. William F. Lorenz died in Madison on February 19, 1958 of a heart condition.
