An oration on the classification and nomenclature of diseases, with remarks on diseases due to treatment / by H.D. Rolleston, M.D., F.R.C.P., senior physician to St. George's Hospital; physician, Victoria Hospital for Children.

  • Rolleston, Humphry Davy, Sir, 1862-1944
Date:
[1909]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An oration on the classification and nomenclature of diseases, with remarks on diseases due to treatment / by H.D. Rolleston, M.D., F.R.C.P., senior physician to St. George's Hospital; physician, Victoria Hospital for Children. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that his name becomes attached to more than one disease. Thus we have Addison’s disease of the suprarenal capsules, Addison’s cheloid (morphoea or circumscribed sclerodermia), and Addison’s (pernicious) anaemia ; and on the surgical side Pott’s disease of the spine, Pott’s fracture, and Pott’s puffy tumour of the skull, and Paget’s disease of bone, Paget’s disease of the nipple, and the almost forgotten Paget’s “recurrent fibroid” (spindle- celled sarcoma of the subcutaneous tissues). Marie’s disease, a synonym which is generally used to describe hypertrophic pulmonary osteo-arthropathy, has also been employed to denote hereditary cerebellar ataxia, spondylosis rhizomelica, and even acromegaly. The last is specially unfortunate because Marie’s name is more properly connected with osteo¬ arthropathy, which he was the first to distinguish from acromegaly. Yon Recklinghausen’s disease is the name commonly employed to describe the combination of multiple neurofibromatosis, areas of cutaneous pigmentation, and molluscous tumours of the skin ; but it is also occasionally applied to a combination of conditions described by him— namely, hemochromatosis, or bronzing of the skin, cirrhosis- of the liver, and of the pancreas terminating in diabetes. On questions of priority national feeling may come in and a disease may have different names in different tongues. The most extreme example of this is probably exophthalmic goitre, which has no less than seven synonyms—Basedow’s, Flajani’s, Graves’s, Marsh’s, Parry’s, Parsons’s, Stokes’s- disease. Fortunately, some of these, such as Marsh’s, Parsons’s, and Stokes’s disease, are seldom, if ever, used. Medical men have often described the diseases they suffered from, and in a few instances this double proprietary claim has been recognised by the name of the disease as in Thomsen’s disease (myotonia congenita), and Pott’s fracture, which this eminent surgeon sustained in 1756. Cruikshank the anatomist and a near relative of his both suffered from certain cerebral symptoms about which they often compared notes ; the relative died first and Cruikshank examined him with care but apparently did not publish the details of the necropsy. With regard to this, Sir Jonathan Hutchinson writes : “ If no one has already a better name for the occur¬ rence of sudden epileptoid attacks marked by subjective kakosmia, extreme pallor of face, and a sense of impending death I would venture to suggest that they should be called ‘ Cruikshank’s malady.’”8 In the case of a few extremely rare and aberrant forms of disease the patient’s name has been employed as a label. Thus, Sir Jonathan Hutchinson 9 briefly designates as “Mortimer’s malady” what would otherwise be described as “ Lupus vulgaris multiplex non- ulcerans et non-serpiginosus ” occurring in a patient of the 8 Hutchinson: Archives of Surgery, 1890-91, vol. ii., p. 305. 9 Idem, Ibid., 1908, vol, ix., p. 307.