Summary:  In our time Kraepelin's way of thinking has been actualised by the influential neo- Kraepelinian school in American psychiatry. Its hallmark is the emphasis put on the application of the concept 'disease entity' in psychiatry. Its most conspicuous products are the classification systems DSM-III and DSM-III-R. Consequently, accurate description has become a topic of the highest interest in modern psychiatric research. The validity of the classification systems is still predominantly based on the consensus of experts and has been overestimated frequently. That Kraepelin, towards the end of his career, expressed many doubts about the concept 'disease entity', is not generally known, especially his doubts about the hypothesis of a simple relation between clinical picture and pathogenesis. In the last years, a comparable development of thinking has presented itself in modern psychiatry. Clinical and epidemiological research, making use of the modern classification systems, has revealed the phenomenon of a frequently occurring comorbidity. These findings are a stimulant for re-evaluation of existing classification systems and tend to enhance the formulation of hypotheses about pathogenesis. Therefore, the development op Kraepelin's way of thinking is still of interest for modern psychiatry.