[The early reception of the notion of schizophrenia of Eugen Bleuler in Austria].

The 100th anniversary of Eugen Bleulers "Dementia praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien" (Dementia praecox oder Gruppe der Schizophrenien. Leipzig: Deuticke; 1911) motivates a retrospective description of the early reception of the word and its meaning. It occurred in two phases: 1911-1914 (focus of that paper) and 1918-1929. The protagonists were Erwin Stransky (mainly in the first phase), Josef Berze (mainly in the second), Julius Wagner-Jauregg and Carl Meyer, leading motives criticisms of the further expansion of the earlier Kraepelinian notion of dementia praecox and of Bleulers' psychoanalytical interpreting of the disorder, but acceptance of the neologism 'schizophrenia' because of its meaning ("dissociative character") and the possibility to derive an adjective. The new word replaced the old denomination after world war I during the 1920s.