[Fritz Flügel (1897-1973). Early research on neuroleptics]

In the early 1950s, Fritz Flügel and his colleagues at the Neurology Clinic of the University of Erlangen in Germany contributed greatly to the clinical introduction of chlorpromazine in German psychiatry. Flügel's clinical work made possible in exemplary fashion the first German psychiatric research on neuroleptics. Between 1953 and 1963, scientists were trying to find a theoretical explanation for the positive psychic effect which had become evident during empirical tests with the new substance. Within a few years, the new drug had its breakthrough, which simply was based on worldwide therapeutical success and good empirical results. That already had happened about 10 years before Carlsson came up with the first plausible theory of neuroleptic function by formulating the dopamine hypothesis in 1963. This brought new energy and developments in psychiatric research in general. Newly developed theses have thoroughly changed the therapeutic approach in psychiatry and the way in which pathophysiological contexts of the brain are understood.