Obesity Hypoventilation Syndrome - History

History

The discovery of obesity hypoventilation syndrome is generally attributed to the authors of a 1956 report of a professional poker player who, after gaining weight, became somnolent and fatigued and prone to fall asleep during the day, as well as developing edema of the legs suggesting heart failure. The authors coined the condition "Pickwickian syndrome" after the character Joe from Dickens' The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), who was markedly obese and tended to fall asleep uncontrollably during the day. This report, however, was preceded by other descriptions of hypoventilation in obesity. In the 1960s, various further discoveries were made that led to the distinction between obstructive sleep apnea and sleep hypoventilation.

Read more about this topic:  Obesity Hypoventilation Syndrome

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.
    Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)

    History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
    In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
    Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.
    Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)