"Ramsay Hunt, Ramsay-Hunt, or Hunt's Syndrome?"

Abstract

To the Editor.— In the course of treating a patient in whom herpes zoster of the geniculate ganglion had developed, I had occasion to investigate her illness rather thoroughly, and in doing so had gone to numerous sources in some of the available dermatologic and neurologic texts. Who among us has not known this condition under the eponym Hunt syndrome? And who does not look it up in the indices of these texts under the letter R? Investigating the matter further, I learned that the well-known American neurologist and neuropsychiatrist, James Ramsay Hunt was responsible for describing this condition in 1907. But in various scientific journal articles and textbooks, there is no unanimity of opinion regarding the spelling, the hyphenation, or the indexing of this good physician's name. Along the way, I found such discrepancies as Ramsey-Hunt, Ramsey Hunt, Ramsay-Hunt, Ramsay Hunt, and other variations of the same syndrome—all