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1F
Prof. Dr Freud
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
25 June 1907
Dear Colleague,
I already knew about your paper,1 which I have now read with great interest. The complete analogy in the pre-history of these neuroses2 is really very peculiar. I have the impression that there is less difficulty in uncovering these experiences in the case of dementia præcox than there is in hysteria, just as paranoia in general is the more transparent so far as the first part of the correlation is concerned.
I eagerly await your communications. If I can offer you something of use through my remarks on your new findings, I shall gladly do so. I particularly like that you have tackled the sexual side of the problem, the side that hardly anybody is willing to approach.
Collegially and respectfully yours,
Dr Freud
Abraham, 1907[9]. The paper is based on a lecture at the annual meeting of the Deutscher Verein für Psychiatrie in Frankfurt/Main on 27 April; the article had just appeared, and Abraham had sent an offprint to Freud.
Dementia præcox and hysteria. At that time the group of illnesses now combined under Bleuler's term “schizophrenia” was generally called “dementia præcox” (A. Morel; E. Kraepelin).
In his paper, Abraham had tried to show that “the infantile sexuality of the individual is expressed in the symptoms of a subsequent outbreak of dementia præcox in the same way as Freud has demonstrated in cases of hysteria” (1907[9]: p. 13).