Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2152

PIERRE MARIE (1853-1940) Essays on acromegaly. New Sydenham Society 1891 vi [2] 182, 38 [1] pp., [2] plates, illus. (2 fold.). 21.4 cm.

One of Charcot's (see No. 1918 ff.) most brilliant and productive students at the Salpêtrière, member of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, and later founder and chief of the department of neurology at the Bicêtre, Marie remains one of the major contributors to modern knowledge of clinical neurology, particularly through his studies on the pathology of the nervous system. It was Marie who first linked growth disorders to disease of the pituitary gland and described pulmonary osteoarthropathy. With Charcot he described the basic pathology and symptomatology of progressive muscular atrophy and his classic description of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is still useful for the modern neurologist. The first part of the present translation is Marie's original paper on two patients at the Salpêtrière in 1885 observed to have marked skeletal overgrowth and deformity as well as distortion of the facies and certain metabolic changes. Later, along with other investigators, Marie discovered that such patients had hypertrophy of the pituitary gland and the condition became known as acromegaly. Later work, especially that of Cushing's (see No. 2269 ff.) early research, showed that such hypertrophy was actually an adenoma, usually benign, and that the physical changes were not reversible. Marie's work attracted such a large amount of attention that Souza-Leite, his pupil and friend, decided to collect all the new knowledge that had been reported since Marie's first paper. The second and larger part of the book is Souza-Leite's Thesis on acromegaly (Marie's malady) and was first published in 1890. The two works were translated for the New Sydenham Society by Procter Selby Hutchinson (1863-1894), a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and assistant surgeon to the Hospital for Diseases of the Throat in London. Hutchinson has also added a useful bibliography of cases of acromegaly reported since Marie's work in 1885.

See Related Record(s): 1918 2269

Cited references: Cushing M142; Waller 6254

Gift of John Martin, M.D.