Above all, Alzheimer wanted the medical world to recognize that mental illnesses have an undeniable material component. There was an obvious political reason for taking such a position because it could then be established that dementia-like conditions are not part of the spiritual/theological domain, but undeniably biological in origin and therefore not attributable with moral implications.

The Alzheimer Conundrum: Entanglements of Dementia and Aging (ed. Princeton University Press, 2013) - ISBN: 9781400848461