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:
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)