Pseudoreversibility of Catatonic Stupor

Zusammenfassung

Catatonia was presented by Kahlbaum in 1874 as a nosological entity, a brain disease of a specific kind (11). Kahlbaum, therefore did not confine himself to a mere description of those symptoms which we still enumerate under the heading of a catatonic type of schizophrenic reaction; he went further and tried to give an explanation of the catatonic disturbances. His theory is embodied in the title of his book, Katatonie oder das Spannungs-Irresein. While Katatonie has been accepted as a psychiatric term, the second part of the title is not easily translated. The word Spannungs-Irresein may be best represented-preserving the style of the period-through “tension-” or “tone-vesania”. As these terms reflect the psychiatric tendencies prevailing in Kahlbaum’s epoch, a few words about the historical background are appropriate.

Amer. J. Psychiat., Bd. III, Nr. 9, 1955.

Read at the 110th annual meeting of The American Psychiatric Association, St. Louis, Mo., May 3–7, 1954.