Elsevier

The Lancet

Volume 349, Issue 9064, 24 May 1997, Pages 1546-1549
The Lancet

Department of Medical History
Auguste D and Alzheimer's disease

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(96)10203-8Get rights and content

Section snippets

Alzheimer and Auguste D

Alzheimer was born on June 14, 1864, in Marktbreit, Germany, a small village near Würzburg. He studied medicine at the universities of Berlin, Tübingen, and Würzberg, where he wrote his doctoral thesis Über die Ohrenschmalzdrüsen (on ceruminal glands) in 1887, producing his first histological plates. In December, 1888, he began his medical career as a resident at the Hospital for the Mentally Ill and Epileptics, Frankfurt am Main, and subsequently was promoted to senior physician.

Alzheimer's

Auguste D and her file

On Dec 19, 1995, the 80th anniversary of Alzheimer's death was commemorated at his birthplace in Marktbreit with the inauguration of his house as a museum and conference centre. Eli Lilly purchased the house, which has been renovated under the direction of Ulrike Maurer. Previously, we had conducted an intensive search for the file of Auguste D, which had been lost since its description by Perusini3 in 1909. We had been looking for it for many years; only 2 days after the 80th anniversary we

Nov 26, 1901

She sits on the bed with a helpless expression. What is your name? Auguste. Last name? Auguste. What is your husband's name? Auguste, I think. Your husband? Ah, my husband. She looks as if she didn't understand the question. Are you married? To Auguste. Mrs D? Yes, yes, Auguste D. How long have you been here? She seems to be trying to remember. Three weeks. What is this? I show her a pencil. A pen. A purse and key, diary, cigar are identified correctly. At lunch she eats cauliflower and pork.

Extracts from Nov 29, 1901

… What year is it? Eighteen hundred. Are you ill? Second month. What are the names of the patients? She answers quickly and correctly. What month is it now? The 11th. What is the name of the 11th month? The last one, if not the last one. Which one? I don't know. What colour is snow? White. Soot? Black. The sky? Blue. Meadows? Green. How many fingers do you have? 5. Eyes? 2. Legs? 2.

… If you buy 6 eggs, at 7 dimes each, how much is it? Differently. On what street do you live? I can tell

The eponym Alzheimer

After Auguste D's death, Alzheimer asked for her records and brain to be sent to Munich, to where he had moved in 1903. Within 6 months he presented his findings to the Tübingen meeting, the abstracts of which were published in the same year.1 Alzheimer's was the 11th contribution. However, only the title of his presentation was announced with a statement in parentheses that the lecture “was not appropriate for a short publication”.

11. Herr Alzheimer (München): Über einen eigenartigen schweren

Auguste D's dementia

There are doubts about the diagnosis of Auguste D's illness, and other diagnoses have been put forward, especially arteriosclerosis of the brain.

Both descriptions of Auguste D's dementia by Alzheimer and Perusini confirm that Auguste D had a degenerative and not a vascular form of dementia. Alzheimer mentioned the miliary foci (later called senile plaques), which represented the sites of deposition of a peculiar substance in the cerebral cortex. This substance has since turned out to be

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References (12)

  • A Alzheimer

    Über einen eigenartigen schweren Erkrankungsprozeß der Hirnrinde

    Neurologisches Centralblatt

    (1906)
  • E Kraepelin
  • G Perusini

    Über klinisch und histologisch eigenartige psychische Erkrankungen des späteren Lebensalters

  • C O'Brien

    Auguste D and Alzheimer's disease

    Science

    (1996)
  • A Alzheimer

    Über eine eigenartige Erkrankung der Hirnrinde

    Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie und Psychisch-Gerichtliche Medizin

    (1907)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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