F. H. Lewy on Lewy bodies, parkinsonism and dementia

F. H. Lewy (1885‐1950) recognized characteristic globoid and elongated inclusions with a surrounding halo (Lewy bodies) in the nervecells of the dorsal nucleus of the vagus and in Meynert's nucleuls basalis of patients with shaking palsy. Excerpts of his influential publications from 1912 and 1913 are translated. In 1923 he published a monograph which contains neurological, psychiatric and neuropathological data about 43 patients with Parkinsonism; 21 were demented, 10 had affective disturbances and 12 were considered as mentally normal. Alzheimer tangles and/or plaques were found in the cortices of 12 patients. Structures corresponding to Lewy bodies were described in the brains of 13 patients, but only once in the neocortex. Lewy's original work may deserve interest in view of current research on the prevalence and nature of the Lewy body and the nosological confusion caused by its rediscovery.