Thursday, November 10, 2005

Eponymous Syndromes

Speaking of guillain Barrè Syndrome, it is actually a syndrome under the category of "Eponymous Syndromes". Eponymous syndromes are diseases/syndromes that are named after the hero/heroin behind the scene. (As in the person who discovered it, or patient’s name etc.)

Some funny examples I thought I will share:

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome – There is disturbance of one’s view of oneself with or without fast forwarding of intraphysic time. Usually occurs in epilepsy, migraine or infectious mononucleosis… It is also known as Todd’s Syndrome.

Brown- Sequard syndrome – This is a CNS disorder, where a lesion in one half of the cod causes ipsilateral spastic paralysis and joint position sense loss below the lesion (as in hamisection).

Well, the name of the syndrome may be funny, but wait till you hear what this genius did. Way back in the year 1880, Brown Sequard declared that he had discovered the secret to perpetual youth after injecting himself with a concoction of testicular blood, seminal fluid and testicular extracts from freaking dogs and guinea pigs!!!!! Well, of course being at that time, some few thousand doctors tried the concoction on their patients. It is reported that 314 out of 405 cases of tabes (muscle wasting) improved, and Brown Sequard’s urinary flow rate improved by 25%. WOW. Turns out, endocrinologist never forgave him for his purposeless discovery.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

What about Paget's disease of the Breast, Paget's disease of the Bone and Paget's disease of the Rectum (or izzit anal canal or colon)? The three organs are totally different from one another!

My call on it: When he first became a scientist, he majored in Ortho, he found the Bone disease. As he grew older, he suddenly have the urge for women hence the breast. But he turned gay in the end and found the rectum disease.

9:57 pm  

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