History
A New York allergist, Dr Sheppard Siegal, first described the attacks of peritonitis in 1945; he termed this "benign paroxysmal peritonitis", as the disease course was essentially benign. Dr Hobart Reimann, working in the American University in Beirut, described a more complete picture which he termed "periodic disease".
In 1972, colchicine was discovered to prevent attacks.
The link to the MEFV gene was discovered in 1997 by two different groups, each working independently - the French FMF Consortium, and the International FMF Consortium.
Read more about this topic: Familial Mediterranean Fever
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.”
—Malcolm Bradbury (b. 1932)