hebephrenia

Note: The term was apparently introduced by the German psychiatrist Karl Kahlbaum (1828-99), though first used in medical literature by Kahlbaum's associate Ewald Hecker (1843-1909), in "Die Hebephrenie. Ein Beitrag zur klinischen Psychiatrie," Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für klinische Medicin (Virchows Archiv), 52. Band, 3. Heft (21. März 1871), p. 405: "Kahlbaum hat in seinen Vorlesungen zuerst darauf merksam gemacht, dass dieses gewiss auffälliges Merkmal auch einen anderen Krankheitsform zukommt, die mit der Paralyse im Uebrigen nicht viel gemeinsames hat: es ist die von ihm aufgestellte Hebephrenie, eine Form der Geistesstörung, die ebenfalls wechselnde Zustandsformen zeigt und im Anschluss an die Jahre der Pubertät auftretend, mit dem in dieser Zeit vor sich gehenden grossen Umschwung der körperlichen und geistigen Entwicklung in engen Zusammenhange steht." ("Kahlbaum was the first to draw attention in his lectures to the fact that this most striking feature [the onset of dementia associated with general paresis] is attached to another form of disease with which it otherwise has little in common: hebephrenia, a kind of mental disorder put forward by him that likewise exhibits changing states and, emerging in association with the years of puberty, is closely connected with the extreme alterations in physical and mental development at this time.") There appear to be no precedents in Greek for the use of hḗbē "youth, vigor of youth, sexual maturity" as the initial element of a compound, but the expected form would be hēbo-, which does not occur in modern Greco-Latin word formation. The form hēbē-, on the other hand, can be found in a number of New Latin botanical terms dating from at least the early nineteenth century, as hebecarpus "having pubescent seeds," hebegynus "having pubescent ovaries," etc. The combining element -phrenia (German -phrenie, French -phrénie) was apparently used first in French paraphrénie "mental illness with delusional symptoms," introduced by the Belgian physician Joseph Guislain in Traité sur les phrénopathies (Brussels, 1833).