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On December 7, 1940 Paul Schilder was struck by an automobile and died a few hours later. He died at a time when he was most happy in his private life and widely admired for his scientific work.
It is not possible to evaluate Schilder's achievements by enumerating his publications. His was a colorful versatility as well as an almost incomprehensible fertility of mind. In the thirty years since he received his medical degree, he published a number of books and pamphlets and several hundred scientific papers. His publications ranged from studies in neurology (by which he was fascinated early in his career and to which he returned again and again), psychiatry and psychoanalysis, to pure philosophy; from careful observation to pure theory. It is probable that he was on his way towards a synthesis of his work when he died. It will be the task of the large community of his friends to collect and to organize his discoveries, observations, theories, and critical comments, in order to find the basic plan which exists in every life dedicated to scientific work.
After his graduation from medical school in 1909, Schilder became the clinical assistant, first of Gabriel Anton in Halle, later of Paul Flechsig in Leipsig. At this time he published his papers on Encephalitis Periaxialis Diffusa which made his name internationally known (Schilder's Disease) as early as 1912. With the start of the first World War in 1914 Schilder joined the colors, but he contrived to use his spare time—he was a man who always had spare time for work—for the study of philosophy and attained in addition to his medical degree, the degree of doctor of philosophy in 1922. A veritable