[Release of delirium tremens]

We could demonstrate by a non-selected group of 103 patients with delirium tremens in the course of a chronical abuse of alcohol that the delirium was preceded by an alcohol-withdrawal (either step or reduction of drinking or both of them). This had to be cleared up as in the last decades studies had been made mostly by means of a later looking over the medical records and as by incomplete data questions were left especially concerning the nosological demarcation of an "occasional delirium" and a "continual delirium". Starting from the observation at the "alcohol-withdrawal syndrome" we also watched both the reduction of the daily quantity of alcohol and the often short latency between the reduction of alcohol and the beginning of the delirium. When the delirium was preceded by psychotic events (to be conceived as alcohol-hallucination and alcohol-paranoia) it only came into existence after an abstinence of alcohol. The observations suggested that the delirium tremens with the typical psychotic symptoms and vegetative excitation principally is a delirium of alcohol-withdrawal and that other forms cannot be defined.