Key+Contributors

Galen (130 - 201 AD)
During Greco-Roman times, some of the first attempts to classsify mental illness began. It was during this period that medicine and psychiatry were liberated from their mystical and religious backgrounds. Galen was one of the Hippocratics who believed in naturalistic explanations for human health. The Hippocratics believed the brain was the primary source for mental health or illness. Galen was in favor of the humane and naturalistic treatment of patients in his time. He was one of the first to develop a theory of personalities related to the four humors of the brain theory existing at the time. He was also one of the first to describe a neuropathology of dementia. Galen described dementia in the senium as mental illness possibly due to some form of cerebral impairent (Cipriani, et al., 2011).

Dr. Alois Alzheimer (1864 -1915)
Born June 14, 1864 in Marktbreit, Germany. He studied medicine at Berlin, Tubingen, and Wurzberg universities. He wrote his doctoral theses, Uber die Ohrenschmaltzdrusen (on ceruminal glands) in 1887, and created his first histological plates (Maurer & Volk, 1997). His residency was at the Hospital for the Mentally Ill and Epileptics, Frankfurt am Main, where he was eventually promoted to senior physician. It was here that he met Franz Nissl and would begin their extensive study of the neuropathy of dementing disorders. Alzheimer's research interests was varied and included, [|clinical studies] of manic depression and schizophrenia, dementia of degenerative and vascular (arteriosclerotic) origin, psychoses, epilepsy, forensic psychiatry , and birth control. Alzheimer was known for his thorough and extensive recordings of histological findings. It was his presentation of findings in the autopsy of his patients, Auguste D. in particular, that led to the discovery of the characteristic amyloid plaques and neurofribillary tangles. Alzheimer's focus was the neuropathology of dementing disorders and he built an extensive archive of autopsy cases creating a scientific patient database, but he also contributed to the start of modern clinical services.



Dr. Franz Nissl (1860-1919)
During his post at Municipal Asylum for the Mentally Ill and Epileptics (Stadtische Heilanstalt fur Irre und Epileptische) in Frankfurt am Main beginning December of 1888, Alzheimer met and worked closely with Franz Nissl. Nissl had created a method of fixing and staining tissues of the nervous system for microscopic observation. Through this technique he made contributions to psychiatry with his correlations of nerves and mental disease. It was this method that also allowed Alzheimer to discover, document and study the characteristic plaques and tangles of Alzheimer's Disease (Maurer &Volk 1997). A close friendship developed between Nissl and Alzheimer and they spent all free time at the microscope. Nissl performed the experimental sectioning and observations of nervous tissue, while Alzhemer was known for his detailed descriptions of the microscopic findings and built an extensive database of autopsy cases. Nissl and Alzheimer's extensive study of the normal and pathological anatomy of the cerebral cortex, resulted in a large six volume work entitled, Histologische und histopatologische Arbeiten über die Grosshimrinde (Histologic and Histopathologic Studies of the cerebral Cortex) published between 1906 and 1918 (Toledo, 2006).



Dr. Emil Kraepelin (1856 - 1926)
Emil Kraepelin was one of the most influential German psychiatrist of his time. He did postdoctoral research with Wilhelm Wundt and, like Wundt with his categorizations of sensations, Kraepelin was determined to categorize mental disorders. In fact, he created and published such a thorough list of mental disorders, that it was widely accepted in 1883, and remains the precursor for today's //Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders// (DSM) Kraepelin believed that many mental disorders were organic diseases. This was in opposition to the psychoanalytic theories of his time. Freud was one f his biggest critics because of his theory that mental disorders were due to neuroses of the mind (Toledo, 2006). Kraepelin personally invited Alois Alzheimer to work at the Royal Psychiatric Clinic in Munich. The name Alzheimer's Disease was given to distinguish presenile dementia from senile dementia by Kraepelin in 1910 when it was first mentioned in the eighth edition of his book //Psychiatre//. It is speculated Kraepelin chose the name of his research assistant in order to claim credit and further funding for his institute. The characteristic neurofibrillary tangles were discovered by other scientists around the same time as Dr. Alzheimer's discovery (Cipriani, et al., 2011)