A tale of two celts.

Abstract

The eponym "Graves' disease" is usually applied to the condition of immunogenic hyperthyroidism, in no small part due to the promotion and influence of the French physician Armand Trousseau who wrote in 1862, "Du Goître Exophthalmique, ou Maladie de Graves." However, the distinguished Bath physician Caleb Hillier Parry, a friend of both Edward Jenner and John Hunter, first described the clinical picture of thyrotoxicosis associated with exophthalmos and cardiac dysfunction in a paper published posthumously in 1825, some 10 years before Robert Graves' initial report. Graves was unaware of Parry's earlier description and considered that the thyroid condition in the four female cases that he studied might be secondary to functional cardiac disorders and palpitations. The many outstanding contributions to medicine and science of Parry and Graves, two truly remarkable nineteenth century Celtic physicians, are compared and discussed. A case is made for considering the renaming of immunogenic hyperthyroidism as Parry's disease, a proposal made by Sir William Osler, who was the first to recognise Parry's claim for priority for the recognition of exophthalmic goitre.