Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy - History

History

The disease was first described by the Neapolitan physicians Giovanni Semmola in 1834 and Gaetano Conte in 1836. However, DMD is named after the French neurologist Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne (1806–1875), who, in the 1861 edition of his book "Paraplegie hypertrophique de l'enfance de cause cerebrale", described and detailed the case of a boy who had this condition. A year later, he presented photos of his patient in his "Album de photographies pathologiques." In 1868 he gave an account of 13 other affected children. Duchenne was the first who did a biopsy to obtain tissue from a living patient for microscopic examination.

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