History of dementia research in Bohemia and middle Europe

The clinical aspects and histopathology of dementia are best understood when based on knowledge of the historical milestones associated with its development. We studied archive materials and visited some of the psychiatric asylums that were active in Prague during the 19th century.

The gradual recognition of dementia and its histological correlates on the territory of the actual Czech Republic from the 1830s are described, together with its links to Austrian, German, and other foreign psychiatry and neurology. A stepwise differentiation between inborn mental incapacity and the acquired forms occurred between 1830 and 1890. This was followed by contributions from Emil Redlich, Arnold Pick, Karel Kuffner, Oskar Fischer and others between 1890 and 1930, elucidating features of senile plaques, and shedding light on behavioral-morphological correlations and on the role of inflammatory tissue changes. These discoveries allowed the distinction between neurodegenerative causes of dementia and other etiological categories.

One hundred years ago, Prague was one of the cradles from which our modern understanding of neurodegenerative dementia emerged.