Neurographs : a series of neurological studies, cases, and notes / Editor William Browning.

Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Neurographs : a series of neurological studies, cases, and notes / Editor William Browning. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    1872. Thanks to the work of Friedreich on hereditary ataxia, as well as the growing interest in heredity, the time was ripe for its appreciation. Only work of unusual incisive and wide-reaching inter- est could attract such a share of attention. What he described had interest both as a disease and in its bear- ings on questions of heredity. As one corollary it removed the age-limit, demonstrated at a sweep that hereditary factors can become dominant at any period of life. Such work could not well originate in a laboratory or technical institution. It belongs to what has been con- sidered the newer and exclusively medical field, the scope of progress that remains to the medical man as such. The Term, Huntington's Chorea.—Operations, methods, and instruments in considerable number are known by the names of their American originators or de- scribers. But, in the list of diseases very few are thus des- ignated. Neurasthenia may occasionally be termed Beard's disease, or oftener dermatitis herpetiformis may be called Duhring's disease, and a few others may likewise bear a corresponding distinction. Yet no single disease of equal importance is so commonly designated and under- stood by a native's name. There are arguments against this custom, such as have been strongly urged by my friend, Prof. Wilder, but that is not the point here. It is to the accomplished fact that we refer. However, these things are not altogether accidental, though even then of interest. Many attempts have been made, notably in this country, to elide this word and substitute some more technical designation.* But this country does not have the decid- *The following list includes some of the more frequently used syn- onyms: Huntington's Chorea; adult hereditary chorea; chronic pro- gressive chorea; chronic chorea; choreic dementia; degenerative chorea; chorea of the aged; family chorea. Of course these forms arc Latinized and rearranged at -the will of individual writers.