Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome

Description

• What is the actual eponymous medical sign/syndrome/repair/classification…

History

1849 – Swedish physician Magnus Huss published a series of case descriptions under the title Alcoholismus chronicus. Huss tried to show that various types of symptoms could be distinguished: neural symptoms, in particular sensory-motor symptoms, and psychic disturbances. Among the psychic disturbances, he mentioned depression, mania, dementia, and severe amnesia. Moreover, he noted physical symptoms beyond the nervous system: vascular system pathology and stomach, liver, and heart disorders. Huss coined the word alcoholism.

1868 – Sir Samuel Wilks of Guy’s Hospital provided an account of the characteristic mental symptoms in alcoholic paraplegia.

1875 –

1881 – Wernicke described 3 patients, 2 men with alcoholism and a woman with persistent vomiting after drinking sulphuric acid. They exhibited an illness marked by a triad of acute mental confusion, ataxia and ophthalmoplegia, the bedrock of the defining criteria. The patients died and autopsies showed punctate haemorrhages of the grey matter around the third and fourth ventricles and aqueduct, which he called ‘polioencephalitis haemorrhagica superioris’

1887 – Korsakoff

1897 – The German psychiatrist and neurologist Friedrich Jolly (1844–1904) proposed the disease described by Korsakov be called Morbus Korsakov (Корсаковой болезнью), and later as Korsakoff psychosis.

1930’s – thiamine introduced as cause

Associated Persons

• Magnus Huss (1807 – 1890)
• Charles Jules Alphonse Gayet (1833 – 1904)
• Karl Wernicke (1848 – 1905)
• Sergei Sergeievich Korsakoff (1854 – 1900)

Alternative names

• Polioencephalitis haemorrhagica superioris
• Name

Controversies

• Did they first describe or popularise or plagiarise?

References

• Huss M. Alcoholismus chronicus eller kronisk alkoholsjukdom. 2 parts; Stockholm. 1849 and 1851. German translation [van dem Busch G. Chronische Alkoholskrankheit, oder, Alcoholismus chronicus. 1952]
• Wilks S. ‘Drunkard’s or Alcoholic Paraplegia‘. In: Paraplegia. Lectures on diseases in the nervous system. Medical Times and Gazette 1868; 37(2): 467–472
• Wilks S. Alcoholic paraplegia. Lancet. 1872; 99(2532): 320–321 [archive text]
• Gayet CJA. Affection encéphalique (encéphalite diffuse probable). Localisée aux étages superieurs des pédoncles cérébraux et aux couches optiques, ainsi qu’ou plancher due quatrième ventricule et aux parois laterales du troisième. Observation recueillie. Archives de physiologie normale et pathologique. 1875; 2(2): 341-351.
• Wernicke C. Die acute, hämorrhagische Polioencephalitis superior. In: Lehrbuch der Gehirnkrankheiten. 1881; II(47): 229-242
• Korsakoff SS. Об алкогольном параличе [On alcoholic paralysis]. Doctoral dissertation, Moscow. 1877
• Korsakoff SS. Disturbance of psychic function in alcoholic paralysis and its relation to the disturbance of the psychic sphere in multiple neuritis of nonalcoholic origin. Vestnik klinicheskoi i sudebnoi psikhiatrii i nevropatologii. 1887; 4(2): 1-102. [Victor M, Yakovlev PI. Korsakoff’s Psychic Disorder in Conjunction with Peripheral Neuritis (English translation). Neurology. 1955; 5(6): 394-406]
• Korsakoff SS. Eine psychische Störung combinirt mit multipler Neuritis (Psychosis polyneuritica seu Cerebropathia psychica toxaemica) [Psychic disorder in conjunction with multiple neuritis]. Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie 1890; 46: 475–485 [also Medizinskoje Obozrenije 1889; 31(13)]
• Eling P, Vein A. Valentin Magnan and Sergey Korsakov: French and Russian pioneers in the study of alcohol abuse, Journal of the History of the Neurosciences. 2018; 27(2): 190-197