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While the origins of two of Kraepelin's three subtypes of dementia praecox (DP), catatonic and hebephrenic, are well understood, no similar clear narrative exists for his concepts of paranoia and paranoid DP, which require a consideration of both German and French sources. An important milestone in the French literature is the massive 524 page monograph entitled "Le Délire Des Persécutions" published in 1871 by Henri Legrand du Saulle which contained extensive, clinically detailed descriptions of a wide range of cases with prominent, organized persecutory delusions. Many of his cases reported auditory hallucinations (AH), and some bizarre, Schneiderian delusions. The delusional content could evolve to include prominent somatic and/or grandiose themes. Using a symptomatic diagnostic framework, Legrand du Saulle proposed that this syndrome represented an independent "species" of mental illness. He sought to give a voice to the affected individuals, including a chapter devoted entirely to their writings. He described several clinically fascinating features of such patients including how often they moved residence to unsuccessfully flee their persecutors and how delusional beliefs could be communicated to spouses and relatives. Unlike Kraepelin, he was little interested in their course of illness or rates of deterioration, except to note that recoveries occurred in 20% of cases. The clinical richness of this work substantially exceeded that in the contemporaneous German literature. Most of the cases described by du Saulle would fit easily into the two major non-affective delusional syndromes articulated 28 years later in Kraepelin's famous 6th edition of his textbook: paranoia and paranoid DP., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)

This essay explores the differences in the narrative forms of mental illness, depending on whether the sources consulted come from published medical histories or archival material. Based on the study of dozens of clinical cases contained in, above all, the institutions of Charenton and Bicêtre, from the late eighteenth century to the 1850s, I argue that the distinctive feature of the clinical case was vehemence rather than delirium. My methodological approach is based on the conceptualization of the forms of experience proposed by the philosopher of history Reinhart Koselleck.

This article aims to situate the Freudian concept of delusion in psychosis as an 'attempt at recovery', within the context of the classical psychiatric theories prevalent in the nineteenth century. Freud's theoretical thinking on the psychopathology of psychosis presents elements of continuity with, and divergence from, the psychiatric theories of his time. We will thus demonstrate the singularity of Freud's own theory. We will discuss the possible influence that the theory proposed by Griesinger, with its description of a temporal evolution in the psychotic process, may have had on Freud's thinking, and consider the theory of 'deductive logic' prevalent in nineteenth-century French psychiatry. Finally, we will discuss the vehement critique Freud made of both these theories.

Ekbom's syndrome represents a relatively uncommon neuropsychiatric condition characterized by the recurrent and bizarre fixed delusional belief to be infested by small organisms or even unanimated materials ('Morgellons disease'), without any objective evidence of infestation/parasitosis. The condition, mainly diagnosed in a nonpsychiatric setting, is supposed to be largely underestimated and, hence, undermanaged. The present comprehensive review aims at investigating Ekbom's syndrome, from a historical, epidemiological, clinical and therapeutic perspective, by providing diagnostic-treatment strategies in managing this condition in routine psychiatric clinical settings. The prototypical patient is a middle-aged woman (or a younger subject in those cases in which substance and/or alcohol abuse is implicated), often single, divorced or widowed (loneliness component and social withdrawal), who has already consulted several specialists due to skin lesions associated with a firm and delusional belief to be infested. The identification and diagnosis are challenging due to poor patient's insight, poor knowledge and collaboration between specialists and differential diagnoses to be considered before asking for a psychiatric referral. Management and treatment strategies mainly derive from isolated case reports or observational studies with a small sample size. Further randomized clinical trials should be performed to evaluate the efficacy of newer antipsychotic drugs, including long-acting injectable formulations.

While the roots of mania and melancholia can be traced to the 18th century and earlier, we have no such long historical narrative for dementia praecox (DP). I, here, provide part of that history, beginning with Kraepelin's chapter on Verrücktheit for his 1883 first edition textbook, which, over the ensuing 5 editions, evolved into Kraepelin's mature concepts of paranoia and paranoid DP. That chapter had 5 references published from 1865 to 1879 when delusional-hallucinatory syndromes in Germany were largely understood as secondary syndromes arising from prior episodes of melancholia and mania in the course of a unitary psychosis. Each paper challenged that view supporting a primary Verrücktheit as a disorder that should exist alongside mania and melancholia. The later authors utilized faculty psychology, noting that primary Verrücktheit resulted from a fundamental disorder of thought or cognition. In particular, they argued that, while delusions in mania and melancholia were secondary, arising from primary mood changes, in Verrücktheit, delusions were primary with observed changes in mood resulting from, and not causing, the delusions. In addition to faculty psychology, these nosologic changes were based on the common-sense concept of understandability that permitted clinicians to distinguish individuals in which delusions emerged from mood changes and mood changes from delusions. The rise of primary Verrücktheit in German psychiatry in the 1860-1870s created a nosologic space for primary psychotic illness. From 1883 to 1899, Kraepelin moved into this space filling it with his mature diagnoses of paranoia and paranoid DP, our modern-day paranoid schizophrenia., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Hallucinations, delusions, and confabulations are common symptoms between neurology and psychiatry. The neurological diseases manifesting with such symptoms (dementia, epilepsy, Korsakoff's disease, brain tumors, Parkinson's disease, migraine, right hemisphere stroke and others) would be the key to understand their biological mechanisms, while the cognitive sciences, neuropharmacology and functional neuroimaging would be the tools of such researches. It is possible to understand the perceptive rules of the mind and the mechanisms of the human consciousness based on these symptoms. However, hallucinations and delusions manifest with extraordinary vehemence with psychiatric disorders such as psychosis and schizophrenia, with which there is no evidence of brain lesions. Furthermore, they are subjective symptoms, and they do not have biological markers. Hence, they are prone to high inter-individual variability and depend on other variables (such as education, history of trauma), and are therefore difficult to reduce to unequivocal constructs. Causative mechanisms are probably multiple. For understanding these symptoms, a common framework between neurology and psychiatry is still missing. The psychopathology of French alienists over the 19th century, of S. Freud, and of Henry Ey over the 20th century gave way, in the second half of the 20th century, to the adoption of the DSM and neurosciences, to pursue a pure neurological perspective. However, although psychodynamic models seem nowadays (in a technological era) less influential, detailed clinical evaluations focusing on emotional-cognitive paradigms are probably the only way to lead to new neurobiological researches., (© 2018 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Jules Cotard (1840-1889), a Parisian neurologist, described a syndrome of delirium negations which was later named after him. Some physicians in antiquity and medieval times, especially in Asia, have noticed this syndrome and categorized it as a symptom of melancholy. They have presented it as a "walking corpse syndrome", inflicting most probably veteran soldiers after suffering during ferocious battles, presenting the first cases of a post war traumatic stress disorder. Philotimus (3rd-2nd century BC) was the first to record it around 3rd century BC, and proposed a simple but pioneering treatment, by just putting a lead hat on the men's heads. Although various combined treatment strategies were proposed by modern psychiatry including pharmaceutical, electroconvulsive therapy, behavioural therapy and supportive psychotherapy, it seems that in antiquity a simple external intervention of supportive therapy was the main concept of confrontation, while drug administration was to be avoided., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)

We present a translation of Arnaud's (1896) case report of Patient Louis, a case he describes as having a pathological form of déjà vu. Louis has the delusional belief that the present moment is a repetition of an exact same previous event. Arnaud's paper is critical for two reasons. Firstly, it is amongst the first articles in the scientific literature to describe the déjà vu experience using the term 'déjà vu'. Secondly, the case report of someone with delusional and persistent déjà vu, anticipates recently reported cases with similar symptoms, which are beginning to gain interest as a particular form of memory disorder. We offer a contemporary analysis of Louis and conclude that, whilst the article was critical in the development of déjà vu as a scientific concern, Louis's distorted memory is not best described as déjà vu, but rather as a form of reduplicative paramnesia described as recollective confabulation., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The analysis of E. Bleuler's concept of accessory symptoms of schizophrenia: delusions, hallucinations, depersonalization disorders, splitting of the ego, memory disorders, catatonic symptoms and acute syndromes (manic and melancholic states, acute paranoia, twilight states, clouding of consciousness, confusion, fugues and dipsomania) is presented. The relationship of accessory symptoms with primary and secondary schizophrenic symptoms according to the second concept of E. Bleuler is highlighted. The mechanisms of the origin of psychopathological accessory symptoms and E. Bleuler's understanding of many schizophrenic psychopathological symptoms as a quantitative increasing of a normal psychic phenomenon are discussed.

The author analyzes the first concept of E. Kretschmer which preceded his famous concept of cycloid and schizoid temperaments: specific 'root' or 'key' experience characteristic of the personality type. This concept was built on the clinical data of patients with delusions but E. Kretschmer assumed that the difference in the degree of disease was not essential ('neurosis of reference' and 'sensitive delusion of reference' were more close than 'sensitive delusion of reference' and 'expansive delusion'). For a sensitive psychopath, the key and specific experience is 'shameful defeat', for expansive psychopath - 'the violence over will by the common will'. Explanations of the phenomenon of psychopathic personalities made by E. Kraepelin and E. Kretschmer are compared as well as the relationship of psychopathic types determined by E. Kretschmer to 'the general psychopathic constitution'.

We recount how Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol (1772-1840) gradually changed his position towards what Philipe Pinel (1745-1826) referred to as mania without delusion. Between 1805 and 1838, Esquirol moved from outright rejection, questioning the very idea of insane persons committing motiveless acts of violence without delusion, to relative acceptance. He eventually incorporated the clinical characteristics of mania without delusion in his description of homicidal monomania, dividing them between reasoning monomania and instinctive monomania. We examine this change by detailing each of Esquirol's points of disagreement, which decreased sharply between the completion of his thesis in 1805 and the publication of his chapter on homicidal monomania in 1838., (© The Author(s) 2016.)

An introductory and exploratory attempt to examine the possibility of viewing the famous writings of Judge Daniel Paul Schreber as the intimations of translawyering. Volubly convinced he was becoming a woman, Judge Schreber announced that he would nail his flag to the feminine and was incarcerated as mad for his pains and his pleasures. It is time to release him and to read his work not as madness but as a unique conjunction of desire and law., (Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

This was the first paper by the Italian alienist Eugenio Tanzi (1856-1934). It surveyed existing works and provided an analysis of clinical categories such as monomania, sensory madness, moral insanity, Wahnsinn, Verrücktheit and systematized delusions, which had been used in France, Germany, Britain and Italy since the early nineteenth century to deal with paranoia. As pointed out by Tanzi, discrepancies and discontinuities in diagnostic concepts affected both psychiatric nosology and practice. Paranoia (from the Greek παρά and νοια) made for greater clarity in psychiatric terminology, and denoted a broad category, including both acute and chronic delusional states which were considered to be distinct from mania and melancholia, and usually not to lead to mental deterioration., (© The Author(s) 2016.)

Introduction: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra published his immortal work Don Quixote of La Mancha in a time of crisis and decadence in Spain that occurred during the transition between the 16th and 17th centuries., Aims: In 2016 we commemorate the fourth centenary of the death of our distinguished man of letters, and thus in this article we analyse the status of Hispanic neuroscience, both in the Quixote itself and in other works by the most significant contemporary writers of that time., Development: Despite the adverse historical circumstances, the shift from the Renaissance to the Baroque periods, in the Crown of Castile, was a flourishing period for literature (Spanish Golden Age) and other Hispanic arts (painting, sculpture, architecture and music), as well as bearing witness to a prodigious creativity in the field of neuroscience, including the field of natural philosophy. In his book Antoniana Margarita the physician Gomez Pereira laid the foundations for brain mechanism and the concept of conditioned reflexes several decades ahead of his time. The apothecary Miguel Sabuco also anticipated the concept of neurotransmission centuries ahead of his time in his New Philosophy. The physician Juan Huarte de San Juan was the founder of neuropsychology and experimental psychology, and his Examination of Men's Wits has been one of the most influential and widely translated scientific texts of all times. Its concepts are clearly reflected in Cervantes' Quixote., Conclusion: This analysis of Cervantes' work within the cultural setting of the book is intended as a homage to the immortal figure of our 'Prince of Wits' in the fourth centenary of his death.

This "article romancé" interprets the clinical section of the Assyrian text BAM I-234 in psychiatric terms, arguing that it describes a melancholic state with delusions of ruin and persecution. From this interpretation, the question arises of whether the words of the insane were regarded as omens.

The article introduces "the visceral novel reader" as a diachronic, context-sensitive mode of novelistic reception, in which fact and fiction overlap cognitively: the mental rehearsal of the activity of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching while reading novels and, vice versa, the mental rehearsal of novels in the act of perceiving the real world. Located at the intersection of literature, medicine and science, "the visceral novel reader" enhances our understanding of the role that novels played in the dialectic construction of erudition in English. In Georgian Britain, reading practices became a testing ground for the professionalization of physicians, natural philosophers, and men of letters. While it was in the professionals' common interest to implement protocols that taught readers to separate body from mind, and fact from fiction, novels came to stand for "debased" (visceral) reading. Novels inverted these notions by means of medicalization (regimentation, somatization, and individuation) and contributed to the professional stratification of medicine and literature.

"Of unknown cause"- in the conclusion of the eponymous tale written by Théophile Gautier in 1833, it is not clear what exactly the protagonist Onuphrius dies of after his infatuation with E. T. A. Hoffmann drove him mad. Thus, the reference to the possibility of "Hoffmania" is both highly medicalized, as Hoffmann appears as a case study of the sick author, while all its causes and mechanisms are left unexplored. With this suppression of the etiology of pathological reading, Gautier separates himself from both the tradition of literary discourses on pathological reading and from the new etiology of mental disorders. This allows him to expound the premises of his theory of "art for art's sake," as it echoes the paradox this theory is based upon, which contends that art is free and independent, yet its effects are deeply felt on the subject's body, in a way that must remain unclear.

The author analyzes the features of the syndrome of «delusional fantasies» (delusion-like fantasies) in the concept of K. Birnbaum. According to this concept, psychopathic constitutions, due to the presence in the structure of dissociation, are the basis for the development of delusions per se. «Dreamer» and «vershroben» types are predisposed to the syndrome of «delusional fantasies». It is emphasized that initially the syndrome of «delusional fantasies» was described as a peculiar phasic episode of delusions in psychopaths, aged between 20-30 years. In the current domestic literature, delusion-like fantasies are regarded as non-delusional bizarre fantastic ideas in children and adolescent patients.

The debate about the nature of delusion has rumbled on for over a century without resolution. The current situation is a stand-off between psychologists, who propose various theories as to the psychological explicability of delusion, and psychiatrists, who generally regard delusion as inexplicable. Our main aim in this 2-part article is to reprise the intellectual atmosphere of German psychopathology in the inter-war and immediate post-war years, when the issues concerning delusion were formulated with more sensitivity to the actual delusions encountered in clinical practice. In Part 1 we mount a critique of psychological and psychiatric theories of delusion., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

Case studies are a cornerstone of medical education and have been shown to be effective teaching tools. When teaching is entertaining, learning is enhanced and, therefore, strange and unusual cases present the opportunity to illustrate issues of disorder and illness in an engaging manner. The author illustrates this concept by presenting the life and character of Joshua Norton, who declared himself Emperor of the USA in 1859 and "reigned" until his death in 1880. Although grandiose claims are not rare among patients, Norton is unlike most self-proclaimed royalty in that his community embraced him and joined in with his fantasy. No psychiatrist or psychologist has ever opined on the matter of whether or not Norton's claims stemmed from mental disorder, and the author therefore presents Emperor Norton as a unique case in psychiatric history to explore first what diagnosis best explains his story and, second, whether he merits a diagnosis at all.

The second part of this paper examines the history of querulous paranoia and vexatious litigation in the English-speaking countries from the nineteenth century to today. This study suggests that the lack of thorough research on querulous paranoia in these countries is due to a broad cultural, legal and medical context which has caused unreasonable complainants to be considered a purely legal, rather than a medical issue. To support this hypothesis, I analyse how legal steps have been taken throughout the English-speaking world since 1896 to keep the unreasonable complainants at bay, and I present reasons why medical measures have scarcely been adopted. However, I also submit evidence that this division of responsibilities between the judges and the psychiatrists has taken a new turn since the dawn of the twenty-first century., (© The Author(s) 2014.)

Richard Dadd (1817-1886) was a well-known Victorian artist who murdered his father, compelled by the delusion that a demonic force possessed his father's body. He was one of the first to bypass execution by reason of insanity and spent the remainder of his life in the Bethlem and Broadmoor asylums. Dadd is rare both as a patient and an artist because he left behind nearly a 40-year record of artwork and journals, which constitute a unique medical and psychiatric resource at a time when the ideas on the relationship of facial expression and madness were changing. Sir Charles Bell's (1774-1842) widely accepted views that the "face of madness" is bestial and anatomically distinctive were being challenged by such physicians as Sir Alexander Morison (1779-1866), who was also Dadd's own "alienist" (i.e., psychiatrist). The purpose of this article is to explore the nature and extent of the influence of Bell and Morison on Dadd, which has not been brought out in the existing studies. By a comparative analysis, it will be shown that Dadd may have conveyed a different view in his works that foreshadows subsequent developments that are closer to a modern understanding.

At the end of the eighteenth century, people who became notorious for their excessive engagement in legal proceedings started being labeled as "querulents" or "paranoid litigants". The term "querulents" first appeared in the General Order of the Court for the Prussian States (Allgemeine Gerichtsardnung für die Preussischen Staaten) from July 6, 1793. From there on, the spectrum of juridical measures undertaken against the so-labeled litigators included classifying these persons as ineligible for legal action and psychiatric hospitalization. The paper discusses to what extent Hermann Bahr rearranges psychiatric and legal knowledge about this special type of the complainer in his tragi- comedy Der Querulant, premiered in 1914. This concerns, first, the theatricality of the body and speech, secondly, the use of cultural techniques of writing and, thirdly, conflict- ing notions of justice. Therefore, the paper analyzes the aesthetic function of querulous behavior in the dramatic structure of the play from the point of view of both media theory and literary theory.

This article explores an example of the transmission of Dutch psychiatric knowledge to Japan in the Edo period (1600-1868), through the translation of a case study first published by Schroeder van der Kolk in 1826. The translation appeared in an innovative new journal of Western medicine edited by the Japanese rangaku (Dutch-learning) scholar, Mitsukuri Genpo. The case study describes the symptoms and treatment of a woman who experienced delusions following an ear infection, in terms largely familiar to the Japanese doctors of the time. This translation provides opportunities to consider the globalization and localization of psychiatric knowledge, the medicalization of mental health care in Japan, and the growing interest in Western psychiatry before its official introduction to Japan after 1868., (© The Author(s) 2014.)

The first part of this two-part paper presents a comparative history of paranoia querulans, also known as litigants' delusion, in German-speaking countries and France from the nineteenth century onwards. We first focus on two classic literary works which describe litigious behaviours that were later pathologized, then give an insight into the history of Querulantenwahn (litigants' delusion), a term coined in 1857 by Johann Ludwig Casper and adopted by German-speaking psychiatrists and forensic experts. The last section is devoted to its French equivalent, the delusion of the litigious persecuted-persecutors. We show how this category, widely popular among French fin-de-siècle alienists, was replaced by another: the delusion of revendication (litigious subtype). The history of the vexatious litigants in the English-speaking world will be explored in the Part 2., (© The Author(s) 2014.)

Although Parkinson's disease (PD) has been classically defined as a motor disorder, a range of non-motor symptoms (NMS) including cognitive, mood, autonomic and sleep disturbances occur with the passage of time. Although it seems that the non-motor aspect of PD is a recent observation, classic authors (James Parkinson, Charcot, Gowers, Oppenheim and Wilson) had described many NMS including pain, fatigue, bladder dysfunction, cognitive decline and delusion. In this review we have collated the classic literature of NMS in PD., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This paper provides an overview and critical reassessment of the cases of clinical lycanthropy reported in the medical literature from 1850 onwards. Out of 56 original case descriptions of metamorphosis into an animal, only 13 fulfilled the criteria of clinical lycanthropy proper. The remaining cases constituted variants of the overarching class of clinical zoanthropy. Forty-seven cases involved primary delusions, and nine secondary delusions on the basis of somatic and/or visual hallucinations which may well have affected the patients' sense of physical existence, also known as coenaesthesis. Cases of secondary delusions in particular warrant proper somatic and auxiliary investigations to rule out any underlying organic pathology, notably in somatosensory areas and those representing the body scheme.

The novelist Henry James shared with his brother William, the author of the Principles of Psychology, a deep interest in the ways in which personal identity is built through one's history and experiences. At the end of his life, Henry James suffered a vascular stroke in the right hemisphere and developed a striking identity delusion. He dictated in a perfectly clear and coherent manner two letters as if they were written by Napoleon Bonaparte. He also showed signs of reduplicative paramnesia. Negative symptoms resulting from right hemisphere damage may disrupt the feelings of "warmth and intimacy and immediacy" and the "resemblance among the parts of a continuum of feelings (especially bodily feelings)", which are the foundation of personal identity according to William James. On the other hand, a left hemisphere receiving inadequate input from the damaged right hemisphere may produce positive symptoms such as delusional, confabulatory narratives. Other fragments dictated during Henry James's final disease reveal some form of insight, if partial and disintegrated, into his condition. Thus, even when consciousness is impaired by brain damage, something of its deep nature may persist, as attested by the literary characteristics of the last fragments of the Master.

Luigi Pirandello was an Italian playwright, novelist, short story writer, poet, and one of the leading dramatists of the twentieth century. Pirandello used his plays and short stories to express his life philosophy which included the irony and bitterness of self-deception. In his works, his characters possess highly complex personalities, portrayed by ongoing and overlapping conflicts between illusion and reality. These manifestations of double personalities and confusion between imagination and reality are today known as psychopathological phenomena, classified as both delusional misidentification and reduplication syndromes. Here, individuals misidentify and reduplicate places, people, or events. These delusional syndromes (Capgras, Frégoli, intermetamorphosis, syndrome of subjective doubles) occur primarily in psychiatric illnesses (i.e. schizophrenia) and organic illnesses (i.e. right hemispheric stroke). For Pirandello, reality was highly subjective in all humans. However, misidentification and reduplication syndromes can manifest when this subjectivity gets out of control. With his works, Pirandello made philosophical concepts which had previously only been discussed by intellectuals available to a much larger audience. Pirandello continued to elaborate upon this concept of mutable ego, established by Blaise Pascal in the 1600s and carried on by the French psychologist Alfred Binet., (Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

This article addresses asylum patients 'expressions of Christian religious identity in New Zealand's only private asylum, Ashburn Hall, Dunedin, New Zealand, between 1882 and 1910. Religion remains an area that has been under-examined by historians of the asylum. A significant minority of patients admitted to Ashburn Hall turned to religion to interpret their surroundings, express their feelings, or assert their identity within the space of the asylum. For those allowed out of the asylum to attend their own denominational services, religion also opened up a community other than the forced community of the asylum. The recurrence of religious language, delusions, and observance in patient case notes suggests the importance of Christianity in patients' lives and their experiences of the asylum.

This article investigates the history of the concept of mood-congruent delusions and the problems accompanying this concept. In the late nineteenth century, there were conflicting views regarding the relationship between the contents of an individual's delusional thought and his/her affective state. The differentiation between delusion-like ideas secondary to affective state and incomprehensible primary delusions was introduced in the early twentieth century; this differentiation is the origin of the present-day distinction between mood-congruent and -incongruent delusions. Although the themes of delusions are clearly described in the operational diagnostic criteria for mood-congruent psychotic symptoms, the concept of mood congruence inevitably involves ambiguity. This article argues that a dilemma between reliability and validity emerges when diagnosing mood-congruent (and -incongruent) psychotic symptoms.

We propose a chronological review of the psychopathological interpretations of writings produced by spiritualists during their practices of trance or by spiritualists turned delirious. The interest is to highlight the exemplary role that psychiatrists or psychopathologists made attributed to mediumnism in the elaboration of psychiatric knowledge.

On 14th May 1610, François Ravaillac, a delusional mystic, assassinated King Henri IV. Under the Ancien Regime, regicide was considered as a supreme act of patricide and received the ultimate punishment even if the perpetrator showed obvious signs of insanity. What would the situation be today? A study of this notorious historical episode provides a reflection on the way dangerousness linked to mental disorders has been viewed and treated over the last four centuries.

Klaus Conrad's major contribution to the phenomenology of psychosis focused on the patient's experiences during the prodromal and early psychotic phases of schizophrenia. The literature in English concerning his work is sparse, in part because Conrad's work contains complex concepts that lose much in translation. This communication attempts to clarify Conrad's thought, especially as it pertains to the role of mood and delusions in beginning psychosis and its underlying neurobiology.

In this paper, the original Greek language texts of the Byzantine medical literature about lycanthropy are reviewed. The transformation of a human being into a wolf and the adoption of animal-like behaviour, which were already known from mythology and had been presented in the scientific works of ancient Greek and Roman physicians, were examined by six Byzantine physicians and explained as a type of melancholic depression or mania. In spite of the influence of Byzantine medicine, its rationality in the interpretation of lycanthropy was forgotten in medieval and Renaissance times when it was replaced by explanations based on demonic possession and witchcraft. More recently psychiatry has treated the phenomenon as a subject of medical inquiry and has again explained the condition in terms of mental disorder.

Objective: This paper inquires the hypothesis that Hitler's rise to power was in part due to a hypnotic therapy he had undergone when being treated for hysterical blindness at an army hospital in the town of Pasewalk in October 1918 - as recent contributions have argued. Edmund Forster, his psychiatrist at that time, is supposed to have suggested to Hitler that he would be ordained as Germany's redeemer in times of defeat, thus causing a profound change in his patient's personality., Methods: Following three lines of argument, this paper examines if such an assumption can be made plausible. Firstly, it takes a close look at the main historical source which is the novel THE EYEWITNESS, written in German language by the Czech-Jewish author Ernst Weiss. Then it asks if Forster is likely to have chosen hypnosis as a method of treatment. Finally, it exploits the work of the even lesser known author Alexander Moritz Frey who happened to serve close to Hitler as a medical orderly in WW I, thus trying to validate whether or not Hitler really underwent a change of personality in autumn 1918., Results: Although the eventualities of such a hypnotic treatment or a profound change in Hitler's behaviour in that time cannot be disproved, both seem highly unlikely., Conclusion: S One should altogether abandon the notion of Hitler having suffered a permanent change of personality in 1918, be it due to psychiatric treatment or to psychological trauma itself.

Unlabelled: INTRODUCTION, AIMS: The authors present the Cotard's syndrome, a rare psychiatric condition, pointing out the latest results in terms of etiology and psychoneurology. The central feature of the syndrome is a nihilistic delusion, in which the patient denies his or her own existence and that of the external world., Method: We searched electronic databases using the appropriate search terms, relevant articles were carefully reviewed. We present three cases from our clinical practice., Results: After the overview of the latest biological and neuropsychological findings, the historical aspects of the condition, the terminology, the nosology, the classification, the differential diagnostics and the etiology are discussed. The psychopathology and the phenomenology of Cotard's syndrome are also presented, shedding light on existential aspects as well. To sum up with useful information for the clinical practice, the possible treatment strategies, the course and the prognosis of the disease are also discussed., Conclusions: The presented theoretical and practical aspects give a lead on deeper understanding, easier recognition and more adequate therapy of the Cotard's syndrome.

In 1518, one of the strangest epidemics in recorded history struck the city of Strasbourg. Hundreds of people were seized by an irresistible urge to dance, hop and leap into the air. In houses, halls and public spaces, as fear paralyzed the city and the members of the elite despaired, the dancing continued with mindless intensity. Seldom pausing to eat, drink or rest, many of them danced for days or even weeks. And before long, the chronicles agree, dozens were dying from exhaustion. What was it that could have impelled as many as 400 people to dance, in some cases to death?

Background: Clinical observations and research have found the content of delusions in schizophrenia to be sensitive to sociopolitical and cultural factors., Aims: The aim of this retrospective case-note study was to determine changes in the frequencies of various contents of delusions in schizophrenia patients over time., Methods: A total of 120 records of first-time admission schizophrenia patient at Ljubljana's psychiatric hospital in the period from 1881 to 2000 were randomly selected. Information was taken from each record to fill out a form specially created for this study. The frequencies of delusions with regard to their content in various time spans were compared., Results: A marked increase in two delusional themes--persecution and self-reference--was found after the change of political regime (1941-2000) in Slovenia. After the spread of radio in the 1920s and television in the 1950s in Slovenia, there was an obvious increase in delusions of outside influence and control as well as delusions with technical themes. A striking increase in the percentage of Schneiderian first-rank symptoms was found after the spread of Schneider's ideas in the 1950s., Conclusions: Sociopolitical changes and scientific and technical developments have a marked influence on the delusional content in schizophrenia.

We propose abandoning three outdated, pejorative diagnostic terms: 'trichotillomania', 'delusions of parasitosis', and 'neurotic excoriation'. These insensitive terms are offensive to patients and become a barrier to treatment. We suggest the following alternative patient-centred nomenclature: 'neuromechanical alopecia', 'pseudoparasitic dysaesthesia', and (simply) 'excoriation'. We briefly review clinical and historical aspects of these disorders.