[Sensitive character: an almost forgotten personality disorder - illustrated by the case Anton Reiser]. / Der sensitive Charakter: Eine fast vergessene Persönlichkeitsstörung - illustriert am Fall Anton Reiser.

n his famous 1918 book "The sensitive relative delusion" Ernst Kretschmer not only described this specific delusional disorder but also the underlying sensitive personality disorder. Until now, relatively little attention has been paid to this part of his work. The incomplete reception is outlined, followed by a description of the symptoms, psychodynamics and course of sensitive personality disorder. The interpretation of "Anton Reiser: a psychological novel" - the autobiographical work by Karl Philipp Moritz in 1785 ­ is used as an example since it describes Anton Reiser as a sensitive personality.

[An internist for psychiatry: Carl August Wunderlich (1815 - 1877)]. / Ein Internist für die Psychiatrie: Carl August Wunderlich (1815 - 1877).

In 19th century Germany C. A. Wunderlich (1815 - 1877) was one of the most important specialists of internal medicine. In addition he was receptive and alive to psychiatry. He translated an important book and held a lecture on psychiatry. He helped his friend Wilhelm Griesinger in the foundation of zhis career and later published his works. Wunderlich brought forward the principal of "clinical method" in medicine in general and particularly in psychiatry. Wunderlich rendered outstanding services to the development of psychiatry in the 19th century.

[Between Griesinger and Kraepelin--Ludwig Meyer (1827-1900): anatomist and reform psychiatrist]. / Zwischen Griesinger und Kraepelin--Ludwig Meyer (1827-1900): Anatom und Psychiatriereformer.

Ludwig Meyer worked as resident psychiatrist, scientist and university teacher in Berlin, Schwetz, Hamburg and for the longest time in Göttingen. He promoted social psychiatry, i. e. extramural treatment, "Milieutherapie" within the institution and especially the non restraint system. Mention should be made of the casuistic works, in which Meyer connected clinical and neopathological methods, morphologic studies of progressive paralysis and--beyond psychiatry--the discovery of "Progenie" in anatomy. Forensic psychiatry he saw as an expert task as well as a medical task. In the training of psychiatrists Meyer broke new ground. Ludwig Meyer is the most important representative of the late 19th century. His work was mainly influenced by Griesinger's concepts (1868). Within the following thirty years Meyer further developed these concepts and added ideas of his own. In Meyers works Kraepelin's clinical methods and pluralistic psychiatry already shine through.

[Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939) and German psychiatry]. / Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939) und die deutsche Psychiatrie.

Eugen Bleuler was born 150 years ago, and about 100 years ago he published his "Schizophrenia" for the very first time-giving rise to a retrospective view especially concerning German psychiatry. Together with Emil Kraepelin, who was more or less of the same epoch as Freud, E. Bleuler is one of the fathers of modern psychiatry. From the broad spectrum of his psychiatry with many findings, two achievements are particularly meaningful: the schizophrenia monography of 1911 and the first edition of his educational manual from 1916. Psychiatry owes two achievements to E. Bleuler: "deepened" psychopathology, which depicted schizophrenic symptoms and their relation, and the importance of psychoanalysis for psychiatry. Bleuler was not a psychoanalyst himself but rather a pluridimensional psychiatrist in the best sense of the word and at the same time sympathetic to psychoanalysis. The reception and historical effect of Bleuler's work are described. Another important subject that Bleuler himself regarded as the central field in his work is pointed out: the fight against alcoholism.

[Science and clinical practice. 1865 psychiatric convention in Hannover]. / Wissenschaft und Praxis. Zur Psychiatertagung 1865 in Hannover.

Psychiatric conventions in Germany have taken place since the 1840s. Concerning content and influence, outstanding was one in 1865 for scientists and physicians in Hannover, Germany. Practical and scientific problems of current psychiatric interest were discussed, particularly the question of monomania in the context of Unitarian theory, and further new, extramural ways of psychiatric care which already had received notice abroad (family care, agricultural colonies). The Hannover congress reveals the progressive influence of German institutional psychiatry.

[Wilhelm Griesingers "Magna Charta" of psychiatry. Its reception and impact on modern psychiatry]. / Wilhelm Griesingers magna charta der Psychiatrie - Zur Rezeptions- und Wirkungsgeschichte.

The work of Wilhelm Griesinger, really a magna charta of psychiatry, is usually reduced to just one sentence: "Geisteskrankheiten sind Gehirnkrankheiten", roughly: "mental illnesses are brain disorders". However, this is neither explicitly stated in Griesingers work nor does it adequately summarise his conception. This misinterpretation will be questioned by a careful analysis of the literature, and, in addition to that, the dimensions of Griesingers psychiatry including its delayed impact on the development of modern psychiatry will be described.

Information technology tools for efficient SNP studies.

We are currently facing a new era of studies involving single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). This increased attention is stimulated by interest in individual differences in disease susceptibility as well as individual responses to drug treatment and the falling cost of genotyping. This review is a guide to the numerous public data repositories and Information Technology (IT) tools that may aid planning, preparation, running and analysis of studies involving SNPs. I will also highlight areas where researchers will have to resort to home-made IT solutions. Unfortunately, both information and IT tools are scattered throughout the internet and a lack of data exchange conventions can hamper the efficient use of these existing resources. This can lead to situations where the planning, preparation and analysis of a SNP study can actually cost more than the actual genotyping. We propose that only a customizable backbone IT infrastructure for SNP studies can help reduce costs associated with SNP data handling and tool launching.

[Persecution in Nazi everyday life. The pathological aspects of extreme stress]. / Verfolgungserleben im nationalsozialistischen Alltag. Zum pathischen Aspekt der Extrembelastung.

The extensive literature on persecution during the Third Reich lacks a first person account of the psychological distress induced by public Nazi harassments in everyday life--with the only exception of Victor Klemperer's diary. His records are outstanding in their unusual authenticity. They have gained widespread publicity and have been extensively reviewed, but almost exclusively from historical or political perspectives. The following is focused on his personal view. Taking his diaries as a starting point three subjects are treated: It is first discussed what kind of persecutional measures had to be faced by a Jewish person who was neither imprisoned nor had gone underground, but seemed to lead a normal life. Klemperer's records reveal an extreme kind of distress with permanent fear of death very close to that described by psychiatrists as victims of the Nazi persecution. It is then discussed how Klemperer experienced himself under these circumstances. Severe depression, distorted perception of time, stupefaction, egoism, and retreat from his compassion for fellow-sufferers may be understood from a psychodynamic point of view but were of course perceived as demoralization by Klemperer himself. Finally the present paper pursues the potentials of coming through and coping with persecution. Klemperer describes various ways and means of compensating and coping which were subsequently taken away from him with growing persecution. His non-Jewish wife was his only personal supporter. Writing was a constantly effective coping measure to him, initially as an essayist. After he had been banned from the academic community his diary remained his only opportunity for writing. In spite of being under constant fear for his life, he kept on writing. The subjective experiences of this situation are discussed. His recording of everyday life under persecution enabled him to survive it. Hence his diaries had a life-preserving function.

Vaccine candidate MSP-1 from Plasmodium falciparum: a redesigned 4917 bp polynucleotide enables synthesis and isolation of full-length protein from Escherichia coli and mammalian cells.

The Plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite is the causative agent of malaria tropica. Merozoites, one of the extracellular developmental stages of this parasite, expose at their surface the merozoite surface protein-1 complex (MSP-1), which results from the proteolytic processing of a 190-200 kDa precursor. MSP-1 is highly immunogenic in humans and numerous studies suggest that this protein is an effective target for a protective immune response. Although its function is unknown, there are indications that it may play a role during invasion of erythrocytes by merozoites. The parasite-derived msp-1 gene, which is approximately 5000 bp long, contains 74% AT. This high AT content has prevented stable cloning of the full-size gene in Escherichia coli and consequently its expression in heterologous systems. Here, we describe the synthesis of a 4917 bp gene encoding MSP-1 from the FCB-1 strain of P. falciparum adjusted for human codon preferences. The synthetic msp-1 gene (55% AT) was cloned, maintained and expressed in its entirety in E.coli as well as in CHO and HeLa cells. The purified protein is soluble and appears to possess native conformation because it reacts with a panel of mAbs specific for conformational epitopes. The strategy we used for synthesizing the full-length msp-1 gene was toassemble it from DNA fragments encoding all of the major proteolytic fragments normally generated at the parasite's surface. Thus, after subcloning we also obtained each of these MSP-1 processing products as hexahistidine fusion proteins in E.coli and isolated them by affinity chromatography on Ni2+agarose. The availability of defined preparations of MSP-1 and its major processing products open up new possibilities for in-depth studies at the structural and functional level of this important protein, including the exploration of MSP-1-based experimental vaccines.