In February 1919 the Harvard neuropathologist Elmer Ernst Southard (1876—1920) presented a paper in which he outlined his reasons for dropping the term `dementia praecox' in favour of a competing diagnostic concept and term, `schizophrenia'. Southard's criticisms reflected the opinion of many US psychiatrists at that time, leading to the replacement of Emil Kraepelin's dementia praecox by Eugen Bleuler's schizophrenia in US psychiatry by the mid-1920s. The text of Southard's lecture is published here for the first time. Also included are excerpts from letters from US psychiatrists George H. Kirby, Albert M. Barrett, Adolf Meyer and August Hoch to Southard in response to his query as to whether dementia praecox or schizophrenia should be adopted in US psychiatric nomenclature.
American Medico-Psychological Association and the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (1918) Statistical Manual for the Use of Institutions for the Insane (New York: National Committee for Mental Hygiene).
2.
Canavan, M.M. (1925) Elmer Ernest Southard and his Parents: A Brain Study (Cambridge, MA: privately printed by The University Press).
3.
Gay, F.P. (1938) The Open Mind: Elmer Ernest Southard, 1876—1920 (Chicago: Normandie House).
4.
Grob, G.N. (1985) The Inner World of American Psychiatry 1890—1940: Selected Correspondence (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press).
5.
Harrison, P.J. (1999) The neuropathology of schizophrenia: A critical review of the data and their interpretation. Brain, 122, 593—624.
6.
Kraepelin, E. (1913) Psychiatrie. Ein Lehrbuch für Studirende und Aerzte. Achte, vollständig umgearbeitete Auflage, Vol. 3 (Leipzig: Barth).
7.
Kraepelin, E. (1919) Dementia Praecox and Paraphrenia, translated by R. Mary Barclay (Edinburgh: E. & S. Livingstone); originally published in Psychiatrie (8th edn, 1913), III. Band, II. Teil, Kapitel IX.
8.
Lunbeck, E. (1994) The Psychiatric Persuasion: Knowledge, Gender, and Power in Modern America (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
9.
Meyer, A. (1917—1918) The aims and meaning of psychiatric diagnosis. American Journal of Insanity, 74, 163—8.
10.
Meyer, A. (1921—1922) Constructive formulation of schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry,78, 355—62.
11.
Noll, R. (2004) The American reaction to dementia praecox, 1900 . History of Psychiatry, 15, 127—8.
12.
Noll, R. (2007) Kraepelin's `lost biological psychiatry'? Autointoxication, organotherapy and surgery for dementia praecox. History of Psychiatry, 18 (3), 301—20.
13.
Pascal, C. (1911) La Démence précoce: Étude psychologique médicale et médico-légale (Paris: Librairie Felix Alcan).
14.
Southard, E.E. (1910) A study of the dementia praecox group in light of certain cases showing anomalies or scleroses in particular brain regions . American Journal of Insanity, 67, 119—76.
15.
Southard, E.E. (1913) A series of normal-looking brains in psychopathic subjects. American Journal of Insanity, 69, 689—704.
16.
Southard, E.E. (1914a) Anatomical findings in the brains of manic-depressive subjects. Proceedings of the American Medico-Psychological Association, 21, 237—74.
17.
Southard, E.E. (1914b) On the direction of research as to the analysis of cortical stigmata and focal lesions in certain psychoses. Transactions of the Association of American Physicians, 29, 651—73.
18.
Southard, E.E. (1914c) The mind-twist and brain-spot hypotheses in psychopathology and neuropathology. Psychological Bulletin,11, 117—30.
19.
Southard, E.E. (1914—1915) On the topographical distribution of cortex lesions and anomalies in dementia praecox with some account of their functional significance. American Journal of Insanity, 71, 383—403.
20.
Southard, E.E. (1915) Advantages of a pathological classification of nerve cells, with remarks on tissue decomplication as shown in the cerebral and cerebellar cortex. Transactions of the Association of American Physicians, 30, 531—46.
21.
Southard, E.E. (1916) Dissociation of parenchymatous (neuronic) and interstitial (neuroglia) changes in the brains of certain psychopathic subjects, especially in dementia praecox. Transactions of the Association of American Physicians, 31, 293—310.
22.
Southard, E.E. (1919a) On the focality of microscopic brain lesions found in dementia praecox. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry , 1, 172—92.
23.
Southard, E.E. (1919b) Applications of the pragmatic method to psychiatry. Journal of Laboratory and ClinicalMedicine, 5, 139—45.
24.
Southard, E.E. (1919c) Non-dementia non-praecox: a note on the advantages of mental hygiene of extirpating a term. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 50, 251—2.
25.
Southard, E.E. and Canavan, M.M. (1917) The stratigraphical analysis of finer cortex changes in certain normal-looking brains in dementia praecox. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 45, 97—129.
26.
Southard, E.E. and Canavan, M.M. (1918) Notes on the relation of tuberculosis to dementia praecox. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 48, 193—200.
