Abstract

The present article summarizes the personal biography of Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915), the discoverer of the association of brain histopathological changes that characterize the illness that takes its name. We explore their life like student and then as academic and researcher, remembering their work relationship with the most important psychiatrists and neurologists from Europe of beginnings of last century. It is also analyzed the history and the rediscovery of the classic cases of Auguste D. and Johann F. the first two studied patients and published by Alzheimer, in 1907 and 1911 respectively that induced E. Kraepelin to coin the eponym. © 2006 Sociedad de Neurología, Psiquiatría y Neurocirugía.