Announcing the discovery of Alzheimer's disease

ALZHEIMER, Alois.

Über eine eigenartige Erkrankung der Hirnrinde.

Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1907.

1st Edition. Soft cover. Very Good. Item #003244

In: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und physisch-gerichtliche Medizin, Vol. 64, No 1, pp. 146-148. Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1907. 8vo (230 x 144 mm). Entire number, [2], 201 [3] pp., including advert leaf at beginning and end. Original publishers printed wrappers, uncut and entirely unopened (clean tear at fore-margin of upper wrapper, very little fraying, slight soiling of front wrapper, tanning of spine, head of spine chipped, small paper defect affecting 3 letters of spine title, lower portion binding a bit bowed). First advert leaf frayed at outer margins, little age-toning of paper, light stain spot to upper blank margin, but text generally clean and unmarked. Provenance: Alfred Petrén* (signature of front and rear cover). ----

Garrison/Morton 4956. - COMPLETELY UNSOPHISTICATED COPY OF THE EXCEPTIONALLY RARE FIRST EDITION OF THE PAPER IN WHICH ALZHEIMER FIRST ANNOUNCES HIS DISCOVERY OF THE DISEASE LATER CALLED AFTER HIM'. The paper was published in a rather small German journal of local interest (Journal of psychiatry and physical-legal medicine) and forms a summary of his first lecture on the subject during the 37th Meeting of the Southwest German Irrenärzte in Tübingen on November 3 and 4, 1906.
In 1901, he observed a patient at the Frankfurt asylum named Auguste Deter. The 51-year-old patient had strange behavioral symptoms, including a loss of short-term memory. She was a victim of the politics of the time in the psychiatric community. The clinic stay was too expensive for her husband who made several requests to have his wife moved to a less expensive facility, but Alzheimer intervened in these requests. Frau Deter remained at the Frankfurt asylum, where Alzheimer had made a deal to receive her records and brain upon her death. On 8 April 1906, Auguste Deter died, and Alzheimer had her medical records and brain brought to Munich where he was working in Kraepelin's laboratory. With two Italian physicians, he used the staining techniques of Bielschowsky to identify amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. These brain anomalies would become identifiers of what later became known as Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer discussed his findings on the brain pathology and symptoms of presenile dementia in his Tübingen lecture. The attendees however seemed uninterested in what he had to say. The lecturer that followed Alzheimer was to speak on the topic of "compulsive masturbation", which the audience was so eagerly awaiting that they sent Alzheimer away without any questions or comments on his discovery of the pathology of a type of senile dementia. The disease would not become known as Alzheimer's disease until 1910, when Kraepelin named it so in the chapter on "Presenile and Senile Dementia" in the 8th edition of his Handbook of Psychiatry. By 1911, his description of the disease was being used by European physicians to diagnose patients in the US. (Wikisource).
*Dr. med Alfred Petrén (1867-1964) was a Swedish medical doctor and professor of psychiatry at the University of Uppsala.
This journal volume is of exceptional rarity. We cannot trace any other copy, neither at auction nor in the trade. Visit our website to see more images!

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