Power outage in the brain may be source of Alzheimer’s

On Nov. 25, 1901, a 51-year-old woman is admitted to a hospital in Frankfurt, Germany, displaying a bizarre constellation of symptoms. Her behavior is erratic. She shows signs of paranoia as well as auditory hallucinations, disorientation and severe memory impairment. Asked to write her own name, she manages “Mrs.,” then lingers over the page, unable to remember the rest. “I have lost myself,” she tells the attending physician.Over time, she will withdraw into her own inscrutable universe, before dying on April 9, 1906.