Prichard's work was also the first definition of senile dementia in the English language.[2] Augstein has suggested that these works were aimed at the prevalent materialist theories of mind, phrenology and craniology.[17] She has also suggested that Prichard was influenced by the somatic school of German Romantic psychiatric thought, in particular Christian Friedrich Nasse, and (eclectically) Johann Christian August Heinroth; this in addition to an acknowledged debt to Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol.[18]