Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:501-504
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Diagnosing schizophrenia: Professor Kraepelin and the research diagnostic criteria
RL James and PR May
The authors applied current diagnostic criteria (the Research Diagnostic
Criteria developed by Spitzer and associates and DSM-III) to Kraepelin's
descriptions of his own patients and compared Kraepelin's diagnoses of
"functional" psychoses related to schizophrenia with those of today.
Thirty-two case histories were selected from Kraepelin's textbook of
psychiatry. Two psychiatrists screened out any comments from the case
histories that might have revealed Kraepelin's original diagnoses.The
screened case histories were then diagnosed by one of the authors. A high
degree of agreement was found between Kraepelin's diagnoses and the
diagnoses of present-day systems.
