People recognize intellectual property the same way they recognize real estate. People understand what property is. But it's a new kind of property, and so the understanding uses new control surfaces. It uses a new way of defining the property.
Above all, Alzheimer wanted the medical world to recognize that mental illnesses have an undeniable material component. There was an obvious political reason for taking such a position because it could then be established that dementia-like conditions are not part of the spiritual
theological domain, but undeniably biological in origin and therefore not attributable with moral implications.