ABSTRACT
The word “apraxia” already appeared in the literature of the last 4 decades of the 19th century. However, it was usually not used in the narrow meaning of today. Apraxia was used when persons with brain disorders could not properly use objects, and it was generally assumed that a failure to recognize or a misjudgment of the objects was the cause of the disturbance. This is how Gogol, Kussmaul, Allen Starr, Pick, Flechsig used the term. Only—as Heilbronner recently showed—the linguist Steinthal used the term “apraxia” with the same meaning that Liepmann gave it in 1900. Steinthal seems to have created the word. From the reports of contemporary neurologists he inferred that people with brain disorders occasionally lose individual facilities (use of a musical instrument, etc.). He created the word for this.
