Wilson's Disease - History

History

The disease bears the name of the British physician Samuel Alexander Kinnier Wilson (1878–1937), a neurologist who described the condition, including the pathological changes in the brain and liver, in 1912. Wilson's work had been predated by, and drew on, reports from German neurologist Carl Westphal (in 1883), who termed it "pseudosclerosis"; by the British neurologist William Gowers (in 1888); and by Adolph Strümpell (in 1898), who noted hepatic cirrhosis. Neuropathologist John Nathaniel Cumings made the link with copper accumulation in both the liver and the brain in 1948. The occurrence of hemolysis was noted in 1967.

Cumings, and simultaneously the New Zealand neurologist Derek Denny-Brown, working in the United States, first reported effective treatment with metal chelator British anti-Lewisite in 1951. This treatment had to be injected but was one of the first therapies available in the field of neurology, a field that classically was able to observe and diagnose but had few treatments to offer. The first effective oral chelation agent, penicillamine, was discovered in 1956 by British neurologist John Walshe. In 1982, Walshe also introduced trientine, and was the first to develop tetrathiomolybdate for clinical use. Zinc acetate therapy initially made its appearance in the Netherlands, where physicians Schouwink and Hoogenraad used it in 1961 and in the 1970s, respectively, but it was further developed later by Brewer and colleagues at the University of Michigan.

The genetic basis of Wilson's disease and linkage to ATP7B mutations was elucidated in the 1980s and 1990s by several research groups.