The German psychiatrist and neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915). Alzheimer studied medicine in Wurzburg and Berlin, Germany, and was professor of psychiatry and neurology at the university of Wroclaw, Poland. He made important contributions to the preparation of microscopical sections of brain tissue. He is best known for his complete clinical and pathological description of presenile dementia (1906) which was named after him Alzheimer's disease. This is a progressive condition in which nerve cells in the brain degenerate.