The Spanish school of neurology and the first American cases of Alzheimer's disease.

The object of this review is to recapitulate historical events tied to the discovery of Alzheimer's disease and to narrate the contribution by two graduates of the Spanish School of Neurology, N. Achúcarro and G. Lafora, who went on to describe the first cases in North America. Both Achúcarro and Lafora had studied with Alois Alzheimer at his Nervenklinik in Munich, Germany. Subsequently, their scientific skills were put to work at the neuropathology laboratory at the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington, D.C. Achúcarro described the first American case of this disease in a 77-year-old patients in 1910. All the descriptions were accompanied by new findings, such as granular degeneration. This was the sixth case recorded in the literature worldwide. One year later, in 1911, Lafora presented a third case, a 62-year-old Civil War veteran, and subsequently a fifth case, a 50-year-old woman, in 1914. In this case Lafora observed histological structures similar to Lewy bodies. These original contributions have not been sufficiently mentioned in writings dealing with the history of Alzheimer's disease.