A case of visual agnosia with a contribution to theory

Abstract This paper was first published in Archiv fur Psychiatrie, 21, 222-270, 1890, under the title “Ein Fall von Seelenblindheit nebst einem Beitrag zur Theorie derselben”. Since the concept of visual agnosia (Seelenblindheit) was formulated as the result of experimental work, this new “off-shoot” of physiology has been the subject of clinical research. Three years after its formulation Wilbrand (1887), in his well-known monograph, undertook to summarise the clinical history of “Seelenblindheit” and to bring it to some kind of conclusion. Having collated the data obtained so far and added his own valuable observations, he presented an extensive theory of that phenomenon which will be the main subject of the present paper.