Historical approach to the problem of autism

pp. 45-50

in: Gerhard Bosch, Infantile autism, Berlin, Springer, 1970

Abstract

Both Kanner and Asperger, in selecting the term autism to designate the fundamental disturbance suffered by their patients, refer to Eugen Bleuler. So far, however, there has been no detailed critical analysis of the post-Bleuler psychological literature on this topic; neither Kanner, nor Asperger, nor other child psychiatrists writing on early infantile autism have dealt with this. It is certainly not our intenion to trace the historical development of the problem of autism here, but it seems important to us, if we are to find a suitable place from which to start, having regard to the present state of the problem, to give a short survey of the more important psychopathological and anthropological works written earlier on autism in adults.