The term dyslexia was introduced by Rudolf Berlin, a German ophthalmologist, in 1883. Sources that note this contribution have incorrectly given the date of its occurrence as 1887. Examined herein are the context in which Berlin worked, his work relevant to dyslexia, and all his published works on the subject. The historical record is corrected, and how this error came to be embedded in the literature is considered.

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Acknowledgment and appreciation is due to Katherine Schaller, Department of German, Russian and East European Studies, Vanderbilt University for assistance in translation of German-language sources examined in this review.

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*© Howell, J. (2020). Dyslexia and Rudolf Berlin: Correcting the record. Lansing, MI: Michigan Dyslexia Institute, Inc.

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Recognition of Dyslexia As a Medical Problem

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The term dyslexia emerged within the context of a historical process that began to crystallize in the last quarter of the 19th century when reading difficulties began being recognized as a medical problem (Campbell, 2013). The most common marker of the beginning of this process has been the observations of reading problems by Adolph Kussmaul (1877) and of his formulation of the diagnostic construct, word blindness. The first milestone of this process was the report by W. Pringle Morgan (1896) in which he described a patient whose set of reading difficulties he labeled congenital word blindness.

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Today Kussmaul’s patients would be recognized as having acquired dyslexia (Crystal, 1987) or alexia, the latter term preferred in medcine (Geschwind, 1974). Persons with this condition are those with normal intelligence and sensory acuity who acquire basic reading and related literacy skills without difficulty, who then experience some type of brain damage induced by such as stroke, accident, or infection that impeded these skills). The one described by Morgan would be described as having developmental dyslexia, or simply dyslexia. Such are persons who experience no brain damage and no visual, auditory or mental deficits, but who exhibit unexpected difficulty in their efforts to learn to read, spell, and write. These learning difficulties are considered to be neurologically based unfolding over the developmental period during which most children successfully learn these literacy skills (Crystal, 1987; Howell, 2019).

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Dyslexia: Introduction of the Term

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It was during this period between Kussmaul and Morgan that Rudolf Berlin (!833-1897) made his observations relevant to dyslexia. Berlin, respected as physician, researcher, and medical educator (Wagner, 1973), first introduced his term in presentations he made to two different professional audiences in 1883: to the Stuttgart Medical Association on March 1 and to the annual meeting of the South-West German neurologists and interns at Baden-Baden on June 17. Excerpts from these two presentations appeared in a report by Berlin published in that same year (Berlin, 1883). This was followed by two subsequent publications by him (1884, 1887) on the same subject.

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In his 1883 presentations Berlin discussed the cases of five adult patients, four males and one female, referred to him over the years. He described their symptomatology that included the acquisition of literacy skills with no apparent difficulty with reading problems occurring later on. He discussed possible etiological explanations of the patients' problems. These were linked to his observation that the reading problems of each patient were preceded by some type of brain damage. Berlin labeled the clinical profile he described dyslexia and discussed briefly the term's relationship to relevant medical nomenclature of the day (Berlin,1883).

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Berlin's 1884 publication recapped the essentials of his 1883 report. In his final and most extensive treatment of the subject (1887), Berlin discussed his original cases (adding a sixth case which he briefly treated). He judged their condition to be closely related to alexia and word blindness (Kussmaul 1877). All of Berlin’s published reports on dyslexia (1883, 1884, 1887) dealt solely with adults who successfully learned to read and who then experienced some kind of brain damage followed by reading problems, what today would be considered acquired dyslexia.

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          Correcting the Historical Record

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Current day professional and lay books and articles, as well as websites, almost without exception, incorrectly cite and reference 1887 as the year Berlin introduced the term dyslexia rather than the correct 1883. New publications that speak to the point continue to make this error. How 1887 came to be cited as the year Berlin introduced the term dyslexia instead of the correct year of 1883 is unclear. Careful reading of any of Berlin's three publications on the subject leads to the correct date. Obviously original source material has not been examined and secondary sources with the incorrect date have been accepted as accurate.