Try telling this story to your friends: and the first warning he
[some common friend, perhaps] ever had of the start of Alzheimer's
disease, appropriately enough, was that he wanted to say something
about Alzheimer (the physician) and found himself unable to remember
the guy's first name
. When you say this, people will start,
suddenly worried, scratching their head trying to figure out what
Alzheimer's first name was. The trick is that, for some reason,
virtually nobody knows that it was Alois, but they get the
impression that such a famous person's first name must of
course be well-known.
I am told that Alois' son liked to play a similar joke on people
who didn't know his (last) name: they would hesitate, hello there,
Mister, Mister…
, in trying to remember it (or whether they
should know it) and he would take a deep and meaningful voice, as if
diagnosing—“Alzheimer”.