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:
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)