Graves' Disease - History

History

Graves' disease owes its name to Irish doctor Robert James Graves, who described a case of goitre with exophthalmos in 1835. However, the German Karl Adolph von Basedow independently reported the same constellation of symptoms in 1840. As a result, the term Basedow's syndrome/disease is more common on the European continent than Graves' disease. It has also been called exophthalmic goitre. It has been known less commonly as Parry's disease, Begbie's disease, Flajani's disease, Flajani-Basedow syndrome and Marsh's disease, in honor of other pioneer investigators of the disorder, whose earlier reports were not widely circulated: Caleb Hillier Parry, James Begbie, Giuseppe Flajani, and Henry Marsh. For example, cases of goitre with exophthalmos were published by the Italians Giuseppe Flajani and Antonio Giuseppe Testa, in 1802 and 1810, respectively. Prior to these, Caleb Hillier Parry, a notable provincial physician in England of the late 18th century, first noted the condition in 1786. This case was not published until 1825, but was still 10 years ahead of Graves. However, fair credit for the first description of Graves' disease goes to the 12th century Persian physician Sayyid Ismail al-Jurjani, who noted the association of goitre and exophthalmos in his "Thesaurus of the Shah of Khwarazm", the major medical dictionary of its time.

One of the first reports of the adverse effects of hyperthyroidism on the skeleton dates from 1891, when von Recklinghausen described the "worm eaten" appearance of the long bones of a young woman who died from hyperthyroidism.