ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the evidence placed before the appellate court in the celebrated Daniel Paul Schreber case. It analyses the factors that led to the decision of the court to release Senatsprasident Daniel Paul Schreber from the status of tutelage which had resulted in his involuntary detention in the Sonnenstein Public Asylum. He is best known for his Memoirs of My Nervous Illness which is one of the most written-about documents in psychiatric literature. Daniel Paul Schreber recorded his reflections upon the justifications for detaining him and others about whom concerns were held because of their mental illness. The medical reports authored by Dr Weber, Superintendent of the Sonnenstein Asylum, constitute fascinating historical records in relation to the way in which Daniel Paul Schreber's illness was viewed at nineteenth century and the commencement of the twentieth century. Many aspects of the judgment of the Royal Superior County Court of Saxony are modern, attuned to mental illness symptomatology and liberal.
