title: The creator of the term 'anancasm' was Hungarian: Guyla Donáth (1849-1944).
abstract: There is considerable confusion in the field of research on the history of psychiatry as to who created the term anancasm. This article seeks to clarify that the term was coined by the Hungarian psychiatrist Gyula Donáth, who was born in Baja, on the Danube, and worked mainly in Budapest. Donáth's publications reveal that his predominant sphere of interest and research was neurology and psychiatry. A number of his publications deal with epilepsy and obsessive-compulsive disorders. After a period of intensive research, during which he spent some time in Berlin at the clinic of neuroscientist Carl Westphal, Donáth proposed the term 'anancasm' in 1895 to describe compulsive mental processes.
authors.affiliation: University of Leipzig holger.steinberg@medizin.uni-leipzig.de.
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Steinberg
mesh_terms: D003192:Compulsive Behavior / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D006814:Hungary; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000266:history; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000266:history*; D009626:Terminology as Topic
keywords: 19th century; 20th century; History of psychiatry; Hungary; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder