Eugen Bleuler's Dementia Praecox oder die Gruppe der Schizophrenien was published in 1912. Thirty years later an erudite historian of psychiatry referred to it as an epoch-making monograph, a product of many years of careful research—‘the most important contribution to psychiatry made in the 20th century’. It was a bold prediction, and he could hardly have foreseen that in another 30 years there would be another product of many years of careful research into schizophrenia, again providing a classic of psychiatry, the work of yet another Bleuler. There have been many instances of son following father in the psychiatric career but in none of them have father and son tilled the same wide field with the same assiduity and unremitting mastery as these.