AT A scientific conference in 1906, physician announced the existence of strange tangles and deposits in the cerebral cortex of a highly confused patient in her 50s who had recently died. He was greeted with silence and only one line of press coverage.
Today, Alzheimer’s disease is endlessly studied, along with Parkinson’s, Tourette’s, Asperger’s and the eight other “disturbances of the mind” detailed in this intriguing book by psychology historian . He explores both the histories of these conditions and the biographies of the people whose names they acquired.
What fascinates Draaisma is how the names of diseases came to follow statistician Stephen Stigler’s 1980 law: “No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer.” Alzheimer’s discovery, by his own admission, was preceded by a colleague’s in 1898. The key intervention is usually the blessing of a later powerful scientific figure.
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Cambridge University Press