About 1909. © Archive for History of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry University of Munich. With permission. Prelude Alzheimer described the long-term study of the female patient

Auguste D., whom he had observed and investigated at the Frankfurt Psychiatric Hospital in November 1901 , when he was a senior assistant, there. Alzheimer had been interested in the symptomatology, progression, and course of the illness of Auguste D. from the time of her admission, and he documented the development of her unusual disease very precisely from the beginning. In March 1901 , the husband of the 50-year-old woman had http://www.selleckchem.com/p38-MAPK.html noticed an untreatable paranoid symptomatology in his wife and then – in fast progression and with increasing intensity – Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical sleep disorders, disturbances of memory, aggressiveness, crying, and progressive confusion. Eventually, the husband was forced to take his wife to the Community Psychiatric Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Hospital at Frankfurt am Main, lite symptomatology increasingly deteriorated and so Auguste D. remained an inpatient of the hospital up to her death on April 8, 1906. After the autopsy, Alzheimer was able to investigate the brain Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of Auguste D.both morphologically and histologically. These results and their relationship with the clinical findings recorded over more than 4 years were the basis for Alzheimer’s lecture at the Tubingen meeting.

The chairman of the session was the very prominent psychiatrist from the University of Freiburg, Alfred Hoche (1865-1943). Hoche was a scientific opponent of Kraepelin and his nosological concept

and classification of psychiatric diseases. Kraepelin was not in the audience during Alzheimer’s presentation. After Alzheimer’s lecture, Hoche, departing from Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the usual role of a chairman, did not comment on Alzheimer’s presentation and only once or twice asked the audience for comments or questions. He stated that, there was no need Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical for discussion and invited the next, speakers to continue with their lectures. These were two contributions to psychoanalytical topics, and were followed by long and very lively discussions, including some active comments from the chairman. The lack of interest from the numerous and well-known scientists in the audience was a great disappointment, below for Alzheimer. Moreover, only a very short abstract, was printed in the official proceedings of the meeting.1 Tubingen’s public press commented extensively on the psychoanalytical lectures, whereas only two lines were devoted to Alzheimer’s lecture. Such was the beginning of communication on research into Alzheimer’s disease!2 Alois Alzheimer Alois Alzheimer was born into a Catholic family on June 14, 1864, in the small town of Marktbreit in Lower Frankonia close to Würzburg on the river Main.2-4 His father was a royal notary in the Kingdom of Bavaria who had lost his first, wife 2 years previously to puerperal fever after giving birth to their first son.