PMID: 11609214Mar 1, 1996Paper

Some descriptions of schizophrenia-like illness in the German literature of the early nineteenth century

History of Psychiatry
J Crighton

Abstract

The situation of German psychiatry in the early nineteenth century is of interest as the specialty was developing in a society which was still largely non-industrial. Examination of the literature of the time allows, therefore, a testing of hypotheses concerning schizophrenia as a disease of industrial society. This study presents a number of descriptions of illness resembling schizophrenia derived from textbooks on mental illness and psychiatric journals from the period 1790-1830, as well as a fictional account in a novella by George Büchner dating from 1835. These descriptions suggest that schizophrenia did occur not uncommonly in pre-industrial Germany, and that the most detailed descriptions tended to come from non-specialist sources. The implications of this for the non-recognition of schizophrenia before Kraepelin's account of 1896 are discussed.

References

Oct 1, 1988·The British Journal of Psychiatry : the Journal of Mental Science·E Hare
Dec 1, 1990·History of Psychiatry·O M Marx

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Citations

Mar 1, 2009·History of Psychiatry·David Fraguas
Nov 6, 2003·Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences·R Walter Heinrichs

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