Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T19:05:12.259Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Charles Bonnet's Description of Cotard's Delusion and Reduplicative Paramnesia in an Elderly Patient (1788)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Hans Förstl  and
Barbara Beats
Hans Förstl*
Affiliation:
Zentralinstitut für Seelische Gesundheit, PO Box 122120, IS, W-6800 Mannheim, Germany
Barbara Beats
Affiliation:
Section of Old Age, Institute of Psychiatry, London
*
∗Correspondence
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An elderly woman developed the delusion that she was dead (‘Cotard's delusion’) and that she was in another place (‘reduplicative paramnesia’). Charles Bonnet reported this unique combination of symptoms a century before Cotard's influential description of the nihilistic delusions and of Pick's description of ‘reduplicative paramnesia’.

Type
Brief Reports
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 160 , Issue 3 , March 1992 , pp. 416 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beats, B. (1989) Visual hallucinations as the presenting symptom of dementia – a variant of the Charles Bonnet syndrome? International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 4, 197–201.Google Scholar
Benson, D. F., Gardner, H. & Meadows, J. C. (1976) Reduplicative paramnesia. Neurology, 26, 147–151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bonnet, C. (1769) Essai Analytique sur les Facultes de L'ame (2nd edn, Vol. II, 176 177). Copenhagen and Geneva.Google Scholar
Cotard, J. (1882) Du Delire des Negations. Archives du Neurologie Paris, 4, 152 170, 282–296. Translated by M. Rohde (1974) Nihilistic delusions. In Themes and Variations of European Psychiatry (eds Shepherd, M. & Hirsch, S.). Bristol: Wright.Google Scholar
Enoch, M. D. & Trethowan, W. H. (1979) Uncommon Psychiatric Symptoms, pp. 116–133. Bristol: John Wright and Sons Ltd.Google Scholar
Förstl, H., Angermeyer, M. & Howard, R. (1991a) Karl Philipp Moritz’ Journal of Empirical Psychology (1783–1793): an analysis of 124 case reports. Psychological Medicine, 21, 299–304.Google Scholar
Förstl, H., Almeida, O. P., Owen, A., et al (1991b) Psychiatric, neurological and medical aspects of misidetification: a review of 260 cases. Psychological Medicine, 21, 905–910.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenberg, D. B., Hochberg, F. H. & Murray, G. B. (1984) The theme of death in complex partial seizures. American Journal of Psychiatry, 141, 1587–1589.Google Scholar
Joseph, A. B. (1986) Cotard's syndrome in a patient with coexistent Capgras' syndrome, syndrome of subjective doubles, and palinopsia. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 47, 605–606.Google Scholar
Kapur, N., Turner, A. & King, C. (1988) Reduplicative paramnesia: possible anatomical and neuropsychological mechanisms. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 51, 579–581.Google Scholar
Moritz, K. P., Pockels, C. F. & Maimon, S. (eds 1783–1793) Gnothi Sauton oder Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde als ein Lesebuch für Gelehrte und Ungelehrte. Berlin: August Mylius. (Trans, of vol. 1 H. Förstl & R. Howard (1992) History of Psychiatry (in press).)Google Scholar
Pick, A. (1903) Clinical studies. III. On reduplicative paramnesia. Brain, 26, 242–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, G. (1940) A review of the German literature on delusion between 1914 and 1939. In The Clinical Roots of the Schizophrenia Concept (1987; eds Cutting, J. & Shepherd, M.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Seglas, J. (1897) La Delire de Negation. Vol. I. Paris: Masson.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.