A note on the concept of dementia paralytica at the time of Robert Schumann's death in 1856.

Abstract

In a recent paper Slater and Meyer (in press) have pointed out that the nature of Robert Schumann's final psychiatric illness has never been satisfactorily explained. Moebius (1906) diagnosed it as dementia praecox, while Gruhle (1906) favoured an organic disease of the brain, probably paretic dementia. Subsequent opinion has been evenly divided between these two diagnoses but recent writers have inclined more to a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Slater and Meyer, however, on critically re-examining the available evidence, have definitely come down on the side of Gruhle.