[The psychiatric treatment of Aby Warburg: a historical case report].

Aby Warburg, one of the leading German intellectuals in the early 20 (th) century, developed a severe psychosis towards the end of WW I. Given up as incurable, he managed to recover after 6 years most of which he spent in three different mental hospitals. Although his treatment involved some of the best known psychiatrists of that time, it was later criticized as old-fashioned. As major parts of Warburg's case history have recently been published they now enable us to reconstruct and evaluate his treatment within the context of clinical concepts and methods available in the early 1920's. Apparently German-speaking psychiatry back then held no sufficient tools to adequately consider psychological factors both in the etiology and therapeutic response for Warburg's case. Instead his own scientific work played a crucial role in the "restoration of reason".