Azañón's disease. A 19th century epidemic of neurolathyrism in Spain
| Autor: | Santiago Giménez-Roldán, Peter S. Spencer |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
medicine.medical_specialty
Prevalence Lathyrism Eponym Disease Consumption (sociology) 03 medical and health sciences 0404 agricultural biotechnology 0302 clinical medicine Epidemiology Medicine Humans Epidemics Weather Lathyrus business.industry Spastic paraparesis History 19th Century 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences History 20th Century 040401 food science Spanish Civil War Neurology Spain Ethnology Famine Neurotoxicity Syndromes Neurology (clinical) business Neuroscience 030217 neurology & neurosurgery |
| Zdroj: | Revue neurologique. 172(12) |
| ISSN: | 0035-3787 |
| Popis: | The cultivation and consumption of grasspea (Lathyrus sativus) in Spain probably dates back centuries, especially during times of famine when the neurotoxic potential of this legume was expressed in the form of a spastic paraparesis known as neurolathyrism. Little known outside the country, the epidemic of neurolathyrism in the years following the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) came to affect more than a thousand people. In late 1872, during the Six Years Revolutionary Term, young Alejandro San Martin Satrustegui (1847–1908), then editor of the popular weekly El Siglo Medico, travelled to Azanon, a remote village in the province of Guadalajara, to clarify a so-far unknown disease. We analysed the original article published in 1873 by San Martin, as well as communications sent by El Siglo Medico readers reporting similar cases in many other Castilian provinces. San Martin's neurological findings in seven personally examined cases were astonishingly accurate; he concluded the subjects’ neurological deficits resulted from injury to the lateral columns in the lower portion of the spinal cord. Description of the clinical findings provided both by San Martin, and by the readers of El Siglo Medico, leave no doubt as to the diagnosis of neurolathyrism. However, none suspected the patient's staple food was the determinant cause of the disease. San Martin proposed the eponym Azanon's disease for lack of a better name the same year (1873) in which Cantani in Italy introduced the term lathyrism. The epidemic of neurolathyrism that affected many Castilian towns represents one of the best-documented in Europe during the last third of the 19th century. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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