Milestones of Science Books

ALZHEIMER, Alois.

Über eine eigenartige Erkrankung der Hirnrinde. In: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und physisch-gerichtliche Medizin, Vol. 64, No 1, pp. 146-148.

Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1907.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #004058

8vo (210 x 135 mm). Entire annual volume 64 including "Literaturheft": x, 1033, [5], 232* pp., including plate of photographic reproduction (disbound) and several text illustrations. Contemporary half brown cloth and marbled paper boards, marbled edges (light rubbing of extremities, spotting of spine). Light age-toning and marginal dust-soiling internally. Provenance: Institut für Gerichtliche Medicin der Universität Halle an der Saale (ink stamp on general title with overstamped deaccession note). Very good copy. ----

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, Alzheimer 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).
Other important contributions found in this volume are: Alexander Westphal, Über einen Fall von motorischer Apraxie, pp. 452-459; and Hans Wachsmuth, Ein Fall von Selbstverletzung (Ausreißen eines Auges im katatonischen Raptus), pp. 856-67.
Bibliography: Garrison/Morton 4956; Zilka & Novak. The tangled story of Alois Alzheimer, in: Bratisl Lek Listy, 107. - Visit our website to see more images!

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