Eponymythology: Diffuse Toxic Goitre

LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog LITFL • Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog - Emergency medicine and critical care medical education blog Despite a drive to provide a consistent, modern nomenclature for signs, symptoms, diseases, procedures, equipment and medical conditions…eponyms still persist. We review 500 *common eponyms, the person behind their origin, history, accuracy, relevance today, modern nosology and their eponymythology. The problem of nomenclature of diffuse toxic goitre (Parry, Graves or Basedow disease) remains an unsettled one. So lets review the chronological history of eponymous aetiology for toxic goitre/exophthalmic goitre – then we can tackle the eponymythology of thyroid eye signs… Pathological signs Goitre Goitre (or goiter) – enlargement of the front and sides of the neck caused by inflammation of the thyroid gland. From Latin ‘guttur‘ (throat, neck) and Old Provençal ‘goitron‘ (throat, gullet) Goitre was first been reported in the book Shen Nong Bencao Jing (神农本草经) (the divine farmers classic of materia medica) around 2800 BC. Further descriptions are found in Egyptian texts (1500 BC), Hindu texts (200 BC) and in a frieze depicting the life of Buddha in Gandhara in 3AD. Exophthalmos (εξόφθαλμο) Aristotle studied individuals with exophthalmos and related the condition to the brain and to persons with a reduced mental constitution. He also noted that those with th...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: Eponymythology Basedow disease Caleb Hillier Parry exophthalmos goiter Graves disease Karl Adolph von Basedow Parry disease Robert James Graves thyroid Source Type: blogs