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This new biography of the Schreber family is a reprint, except for a few minor changes, of Israëls's doctoral dissertation in sociology, first published privately in 1981. An important source of documentary and bibliographic data, it purports to be true to the neutrality of science and scholarly ethics. It is, however, marred by the fabrication of false polarizations about Schreber's commentators. These polarizations are confused, dated, and irrelevant to the understanding of the central figure, Paul Schreber. The book does not offer any new insights about the most intriguing aspect of Paul Schreber's story: his second illness and hospitalization, described in his most famous work (1903), Memoirs of My Nervous Illness.
The only other contribution by Israëls himself which he cites here is the Italian version of a text read in 1983 at a conference organized in Jerusalem by Armando Verdiglione, where he offers this assessment: “I do not think that the analysis of Schreber written by Freud is very interesting” (Israëls, 1984, p. 119). I strongly disagree. Israëls makes no mention of his subsequent contribution (Israëls, 1988).
Israëls's title is the same as the title of a 1959 paper by the American psychoanalyst W. G. Niederland who revolutionized the Schreber literature; Israëls acknowledges Niederland's contribution but spares no attempt to discredit him.
To date the readings of the Paul Schreber story have oscillated between two emphases: the hermeneutic and the historical. Overwhelmingly, the hermeneutic readings of Schreber have been exercises in applied psychoanalysis, that is, shaped by theories and formulas derived from Freud. Historical Schreber research, also