A human quadrupedal gait following poliomyelitis: From the Dercum-Muybridge collaboration (1885).

BACKGROUND: Beginning in the late 1870s, before the invention of movie cameras or projectors, pioneering English American photographer Eadweard Muybridge photographed iconic image sequences of people and animals in motion using arrays of sequentially triggered single-image cameras. In 1885, Philadelphia neurologist Francis Dercum initiated a collaborative relationship with Muybridge at the University of Pennsylvania to photograph sequential images of patients with various neurologic disorders of movement, including an acquired pathologic quadrupedal gait in a young boy that developed as a consequence of poliomyelitis. METHODS: This pathologic human quadrupedal gait was compared with other quadrupedal gaits filmed by Muybridge, including a toddler girl and an adult woman crawling on hands and knees, an adult woman bear crawling on hands and feet, and a baboon walking. RESULTS: All of the human quadrupedal gaits were lateral sequence gaits, whereas the baboon's walking gait was a diagonal sequence gait. Modern studies have confirmed the nonpathologic quadrupedal gait sequences of humans and nonhuman primates. CONCLUSION: Despite Dercum's assertion to the contrary, the limb placement pattern of the boy with a pathologic quadrupedal gait after poliomyelitis was not the typical gait of a primate quadruped, but rather was the typical gait sequence for normal human developmental and volitional quadrupedal gaits.

Joseph Haydn's encephalopathy: new aspects.

With increasing age, Joseph Haydn complained of progressive forgetfulness preventing him from composing for about the last 8 years of his life. He spent his days more and more inactive and immobilized, suffering from a disabling gait disturbance. Still, most biographers consider diffuse atherosclerosis and congestive heart failure to be reasons for Haydn's medical condition and physical decline during the last years of his life. A more sophisticated and detailed inspection of documents and sources, however, leads to the diagnosis of subcortical vascular encephalopathy (SVE), caused by progressive cerebral small vessel disease. Important features of the disease are mood changes, urinary symptoms, and in particular a characteristic gait disturbance, while dementia is only mild and occurs later in the course. Haydn was severely disabled by the symptoms of SVE for several years and often reported difficulties in the completion of his last oratorio "Die Jahreszeiten" (The Seasons). Subsequently, the disease prevented him from composing another large oratorio, "Das jüngste Gericht" (The last judgement), which had been already drafted. Finally, the progress of SVE stopped his long career as a composer and conductor at the age of 73 years.

Gait disturbances in Parkinson disease. Did freezing of gait exist before levodopa? Historical review.

Gait disturbances occur frequently in advanced Parkinson's disease (PD) including slow gait, postural changes, festination and freezing of gait. We have reviewed descriptions of gait abnormalities in PD from classic predopa-literature and compared them with those found in contemporary references. Several components of gait disturbances associated with shaking palsy were very well known in classic literature. James Parkinson, Charcot, Gowers and Wilson described slowness of gait, postural changes, loss of postural reflexes and festination; according to James Parkinson, festination was a pathognomonic element in shaking palsy. In contrast, freezing of gait was rarely mentioned in historic literature save for anecdotal reports (Buzzard 1888). Freezing of gait was fully noticed after the chronic use of levodopa (Barbeau and Ambani). In this historical review, we analyze the concept, identification and evolution of gait disturbances in PD through the time.

The Charcot foot: historical perspective 1827-2003.

Charcot's joint disease of the foot and ankle is a poorly understood and frequently overlooked complication of diabetes. Recognition of this condition, especially in its earliest stage, remains problematic, with many cases going misdiagnosed even today. Medical management of the Charcot foot remains the standard of care for the majority of patients, with surgical intervention reserved for the most difficult cases. This historical perspective began in the early nineteenth century with the first attempts to experimentally examine the spinal origin of rheumatism of the foot and ankle. J.-M. Charcot was the first to describe the arthropathies associated with tabes dorsalis. His early investigations into the tabetic arthropathies (1868) and his brilliant presentation, Demonstration of Arthropathic Affections of Locomotor Ataxy, at the 7th International Medical Congress (1881), established this disease as a distinct pathological entity. Charcot and Féré published the first observations of the tabetic foot (Pied tabétique) in the Archives de Neurologie in 1883. It was not until 1936, however, that W. R. Jordan established the association between neurogenic arthropathy of the foot/ankle and diabetes mellitus.

[Georges Gilles of Tourette, pioneer of gait analysis in the nervous system diseases]. / Georges Gilles de la Tourette, initiateur de l'enregistrement de la marche dans les maladies du système nerveux.

Georges Gilles de la Tourette's contribution to neurology goes beyond the description of the neurological disorder named after him. On December 28, 1885, he defended his doctoral thesis devoted to "gait in the diseases of the nervous system, studied by the method of imprints". In collaboration with Albert Londe, he worked for two years in Charcot's department on "a simple method applicable to both healthy and unhealthy patients", establishing the scientific and modern basis of functional exploration of human gait. The purpose was to "record the modifications of the gait and to fix them permanently, using suitable devises to guarantee not only rigorous comparison, but also to prevent observers, making use of the same method, from disputing or canceling the results completely independent of the experimenter himself". Georges Gilles de la Tourette defined the various characteristic parameters and provided the normal reference values in males and females, determining the physiological asymmetry of steps. He described spastic gait, shaking palsy, and locomotor ataxia. He distinguished between disorders of nervous control and related joint diseases. He also classified gait disorders occurring during hemiplegia. Modern development of kinetic, kinematic and biomechanical studies is a good illustration of the current relevancy of Gilles de la Tourette's contribution.