A large number of diseases have been named after people. Most often, their namesakes discovered or described the disease, while occasionally the disease is named after the first patient described (Christmas disease) or the place where it was first identified (Bornholm disease).

The proliferation of eponyms in medicine is partly due to the fact that until recently the exact cause of many diseases was a mystery. The best way to refer to a syndrome, then, was to refer to the person who first addressed its existence.

There is controversy over the naming conventions for eponymous diseases. Many sources now agree that an apostrophe should be used if the disease is named after the patient, and no apostrophe if the disease is named after the physician (for example, Down syndrome). However, older conventions are still commonly in use, and usage in practice is effectively random.

Eponyms by medical specialty:

• Cardiology
  • Prinzmetal angina
• Dermatology
  • Koplik's spots (a sign of measles)
  • Stevens-Johnson syndrome
• Endocrinology
  • Graves-Basedow disease – Robert James Graves and Karl Adolph von Basedow
  • Paget's disease of bone (osteitis deformans)
• Gastroenterology
  • Heyde's syndrome – Dr. Edward C. Heyde
  • Zollinger-Ellison syndrome
• Hematology
  • Christmas disease
  • Philadelphia chromosome
  • Virchow's triad
  • Von Willebrand disease – Erik Adolf von Willebrand
• Infectious disease
  • Bornholm disease
  • Donovanosis
• Metabolic disease
  • Kearns-Sayre syndrome
  • Tay-Sachs disease
  • Wilson's disease
• Neurology
  • Alzheimer's disease – Alois Alzheimer
  • Guillain-Barré syndrome – Georges Guillain and Jean Alexandre Barré
  • Friedreich's ataxia
  • Lou Gehrig's disease (motor neurone disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)
  • Parkinson's disease – Dr James Parkinson
  • Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome
• Oncology
  • Grawitz' tumor (nephrocellular carcinoma)
  • Klatskin tumor (cholangiocarcinoma)
  • Paget's disease of the nipple
  • Wilms' tumor
• Otolaryngology
  • Meniere's disease – Prosper Meniere
• Pediatrics
  • Down's syndrome
  • Edward's Syndrome
  • Klinefelter's syndrome
  • Noonan syndrome
  • Patau syndrome
  • Turner's syndrome
  • Warkany syndrome (trisomy 8)
• Rheumatology
  • Reiter's syndrome

Alphabetical list

• Addison's disease
• Alders-Schonberg disease
• Alexander's disease
• Alice in Wonderland syndrome – Alice
• Alzheimer's disease – Alois Alzheimer
• Babinski reflex or Babinski sign, common name for Plantar reflex – Joseph Jules François Félix Babinski, French neurologist
• Ball's disease
• Barlow's disease
• Bazin's disease
• Bechterew's disease
• Behçet's disease – Hulusi Behçet, Turkish dermatologist
• Berger's disease
• Bernard-Soulier disease
• Bickerstaff's brainstem encephalitis
• Binswanger's disease
• Blount's disease
• Bornholm disease (* Devil's grip)
• Bowen's disease
• Brill-Zinser disease
• Buerger's disease
• Byler's disease
• Caisson disease
• Canavan disease
• Caroli's disease
• Carrión's disease
• Castleman's disease
• Chagas's disease
• Charcot's disease
• Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease – Jean-Martin Charcot, Pierre Marie , Howard Henry Tooth
• Chediak-Higashi syndrome
• Christmas disease
• Cori's disease
• Cowden disease
• Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
• Crohn's disease
• Cushing's disease
• de Quervain's disease
• Dejerine-Sottas disease
• Dent's disease
• Devic's disease
• Di Guglielmo's disease
• Duncan's disease
• Eale's disease
• Fabry's disease
• Fanconi anaemia
• Farber's disease
• Fitz-Hugh-Curtis syndrome
• Foix-Alajouanine disease
• Franklin's disease
• Gaucher's disease
• Graves' disease
• Graves-Basedow disease – Robert James Graves , Karl Adolph von Basedow
• Guam disease
• Guillain-Barré syndrome – Georges Guillain, Jean Alexandre Barré
• Gunther's disease
• Hailey-Hailey disease
• Hallervorden-Spatz disease
• Hansen's disease – Gerhard Armauer Hansen
• Hartnup disease
• Hashimoto's thyroiditis – Hakaru Hashimoto
• Heyde's syndrome – Dr. Edward C. Heyde
• Hirschsprung's disease – Harald Hirschsprung , Danish physician
• Hodgkin's disease, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma – Thomas Hodgkin
• Huntington's chorea
• Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease
• Kabuki syndrome also known as "Kabuki makeup syndrome"
• Kaposi's sarcoma – Moritz Kaposi , Hungarian dermatologist
• Kashin-Beck disease
• Kawasaki disease
• Keshen disease
• Kikuchi's disease
• Kimmelstiel-Wilson disease
• Kimura's disease
• Kinsbourne's syndrome
• Klatskin's tumor
• Kleinfelter's syndrome
• Köhler's bone disease
• Krabbe's disease
• Kugelberg-Weland disease
• Lafora's disease
• Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease
• Leigh's disease
• Leiner's disease
• Lenègre's disease
• Letterer-Siwe disease
• Lev's disease
• Libman-Sacks disease
• Löffler's eosinophilic endocarditis
• Lou Gehrig's disease
• Machado-Joseph disease
• Maladie de Charcot, French name for Motor Neurone Disease – Jean-Martin Charcot, a French neurologist
• McArdle's glycogen storage disease
• Ménétrier's disease
• Méniere's disease – Prosper Meniere
• Menke's disease
• Mondor's disease
• Monge's disease
• Mucha-Habermann disease
• Naxos disease
• Ormond disease
• Paget's disease of bone (* Paget's disease)
• Paget's disease of the breast (* Paget's disease of the nipple)
• Paget's disease of the penis
• Parkinson's disease – Dr. James Parkinson
• Pelizeus-Merzbacher disease
• Peyronie's disease
• Pick's disease
• Plummer's disease
• Pompe's disease
• Pott's disease – Percivall Pott
• Prinzmetal (variant) angina
• Raynaud's disease – Maurice Raynaud , French physician
• Refsum's disease
• Reye's syndrome
• Riley-Day syndrome
• Ritter's disease
• Roger's disease
• Rubenstein-Taybi syndrome
• Sandhoff's disease
• Scahmberg's disease
• Seligmann's disease
• Sever's disease
• Simmond's disease
• Still's disease
• Takayasu's arteritis
• Tangier disease
• Tay-Sachs disease
• Thomsen's disease
• Unverricht-Lundborg disease
• Vincent's angina
• Von Gierke's disease
• Von Hippel-Lindau disease – Dr. Eugen von Hippel
• Von Recklinghausen's disease (* neurofibromatosis)
• Von Willebrand's disease – Erik Adolf von Willebrand
• Waldenstrom's macroglobulinaemia
• Weber-Christian disease
• Wegener's granulomatosis
• Werner's syndrome
• Wernicke's encephalopathy
• Whipple's disease – George Hoyt Whipple
• Wilms' tumor – Dr Max Wilms , a German surgeon
• Wilson's disease
• Wiscott-Aldridge syndrome
• Wohlfart-Kugelberg-Welander disease
• Wolman disease

See also

• Sign (medicine) for a list of medical signs named after people.
• List of eponyms for a complete list of eponyms sorted by name
• Syndrome

External links

• WhoNamedIt.com, a site dedicated to medical eponyms and their namesakes.