Abstract

Humayon B Dewan, Fawad Kaiser
Brief descriptions of an illness resembling schizophrenia can be found hundreds of years
ago but it was not until the middle of 19th Century that Morel1 first coined the term
“demence precoce” to describe a disorder starting in adolescence and leading first to
withdrawal, odd mannerisms and self neglect then eventually to intellectual deterioration.
Morel searched for specific entities and argued for a classification based on cause,
symptoms and outcome. In 1868, Kahlbam described the syndrome of catatonia and 3
years later Hecker wrote an account of a condition he called hebephrenia