Clinicopathologic Study of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is still considered a rare and unusual condition in spite of the fact that about one hundred cases have been reported. Most of the cases occurred in the European clinics, though some of the earliest instances of the disease were described in the American literature. In the period from 1916 to 1928 only one case1was recorded in the United States. According to our experience, the disorder is by no means uncommon. Thus, at the Foxborough State Hospital approximately 4 per cent of all the cases in which necropsy was performed proved to be instances of Alzheimer's disease.2As this hospital draws from the same general population as do most other state institutions, it probably furnishes a sample which is representative of the whole group. That more cases have not been reported suggests that there is a lack of integration between clinical psychiatry and the basic