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ABSTRACT
Paraphrenia was one of the last great inventions of classical psychiatry. Both the
French school and the German school strongly discussed and traced this clinical
entity which is an intermediate form between paranoia and schizophrenia.
Mentioned by Kahlbaum initially and then described by Kraepelin more than a
hundred years ago, the term will be forgotten after the onset of DSM-III diagnostic
manual, which will be taken in such diverse concepts as schizophrenia or delusional
disorder chronic.
We ask if, in the context of the present standardized textbooks, it is still possible to
observe this rich clinical concept described by our predecessors. Also, by exposing a
clinical case of paraphrenia, we discuss about the clinical presentation, the
evolutionary process and possible differential diagnoses.
Key words: Paraphrenia. Chronic delusion. French nosography. German
nosography.