HISTORY.—The honors of the discovery of this remarkable disease may be divided between Duchenne, Meryon, and Griesinger. In 18521 the English physician published a series of six cases, four belonging to one family, two to another; but these were described by him under the name of progressive muscular atrophy; and it was left to Duchenne, who in 18612 published as a new disease the first case observed by himself, to demonstrate the identity of Meryon's cases with his own.3 In 1868, Duchenne had collected twelve additional cases, and published an extensive monograph on the subject.4 But in 1865, Griesinger5 had excised a portion of muscle from a patient suffering with the disease, and made the first histological examination of its structure. On this account several German writers habitually refer to Griesinger as the earliest authority on the subject. Before Meryon, Partridge in 1847,6 and Sir Charles Bell in 1830,7 had described cases of pseudo-hypertrophic paralysis, but without recognizing their separate morbid entity. Bell's case is the following: "A boy at eight years of age began to experience difficulty in rising from a chair. The disease gradually progressed, till at eighteen he had to twist and jerk his body about to get upright. The muscles of the lower extremities, hips, and abdomen were debilitated and wasted. The extensor quadriceps femoris on both sides wasted, but the vasti externi had not suffered as much; a firm body, remarkably prominent, just above the knee-joint, marked the position of the vastus externus. No defect of sensibility or affection of the sphincters. The upper part of the body, shoulders, and arms were strong."8
1 Lond. Med. Gaz.
2 De l'Électrisation localisée.
3 Duchenne at first doubted this identity.
4 Archives générales, 1868.
5 Archiv der Heilkunde.
6 Lond. Med. Gaz., 1847.
7 Nervous System, 2d ed., 1830, p. 163.
8 Loc. cit. This case is quoted in an appendix to Gowers's monograph.
Autopsies.—The first was made by Meryon: the first which included microscopic examination of the spinal cord was by Cohnheim on a patient of Eulenburg's.9 Since then autopsies have been made in 12 genuine cases, and in 2 others frequently, though erroneously, ranked with them.10