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Alois
Alzheimer |
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Alois Alzheimer. You may have heard of him. His name certainly occupies a
top spot, being as it is attached to one of the most puzzling diseases to
hit man.
It was in 1906 that the first neuropathologist identified the symptoms of
what is now known as Alzheimer’s disease. That man, of course, is Alois
Alzheimer, 42 at the time and working with Emile Kraepelin, the “Linnaeus of
psychiatry” for close to four years. But if we were to dissect the works of
this cigar-touting genius, it is imperative that we also take a look at the
man.
Alzheimer, the Man and the Genius
Alois Alzheimer describes his professional life in his curriculum vitae,
written in Munich in 1903, as follows: “The undersigned, Dr. med. Alois
Alzheimer, Catholic, born at Marktbreit in Bavaria on the 14th of June 1864
as son of the Royal notary, Eduard Alzheimer, attended the elementary school
at Marktbeit, the Gymnasium at Aschaffenburg and the Universities of Berlin,
Tübingen and Würzburg.” In 1894, he married Cecilie Geisenheimer neé
Wallerstein in Frankfurt.
A year after receiving his medical degree in 1887, Alois Alzheimer spent a
total of five months accompanying mentally ill women on a journey, after
which he joined the staff of the city mental asylum in Frankfurt am Main –
the Städtische Irrenanstalt, which was headed by Emil Sioli. It was here
that Alzheimer learned more about psychiatry, as well as neuropathology,
which became a great interest of his.
One year later, the distinguished neurologist, Franz Nissl joined Sioli’s
staff as second physician, and it was not soon after that he and Alois
Alzheimer worked on an extensive investigation of the pathology of the
nervous system. Their study focused in particular on the normal and
pathological anatomy of the cerebral cortex. Their findings were later
published between 1906-1918 in a 6-volume book called the Histologische und
histopatologische Arbeiten über die Grosshirnrinde (Histologic and
Histopathologic Studies of the Cerebral Cortex).
Nissl moved on to work with Kraepelin, the leading German psychiatrist at
the time, in Heidelberg while Alois Alzheimer continued his research on a
wide range of subjects, but this time as director of the Irrenanstalt in
1895.
Then, in 1906, Auguste Deter, a 55-year old woman whom Alois Alzheimer first
met in 1901 as his patient, died. Alzheimer was working in Munich at the
time but when he received the news, he asked his previous chief Sioli to get
access to the records and brain of Auguste D. Later, in November of that
same year, at a meeting of the South-West German Society of Alienists, he
would describe the clinical and neuropathological features of Auguste D as
“eine eigenartige Erkrankung der Hirnrinde” (a peculiar disease of the
cerebral cortex). The disease later came to be known as simply “Alzheimer’s
disease,” after the man who discovered it. |
| This article
is provided courtesy of Roxanne Courtmanch. Please visit
www.thehelpingcircle.com for more articles on Alzheimers
as well as many other topics that may be of interest to you. |
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Alois
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