The legacy of Ewald Hecker: A new translation of 'Die Hebephrenie'

Early descriptions of schizophrenia may be found in the writings of Haslam and Morel, but the turning point in the development of the modern concept was Ewald Hecker's classic paper on hebephrenia in 1871. The syndrome he described - a psychosis of early onset with a deteriorating course characterized by a 'silly' affect, behavioural peculiarities, and formal thought disorder - not only adumbrated Kraepelin's generic category of dementia praecox but quite specifically defined the later subtype of hebephrenic, or disorganized, schizophrenia as well. The present translation into English of Hecker's 'Die Hebephrenie' makes accessible a crucial milestone in the history of modern psychiatry.