The pioneer ophthalmologist Johann Friedrich Horner (1831-1886) and the clinical anatomy of the homonymous syndrome.

Johann Friedrich Horner is remembered in ophthalmology due to his brief report in the German scientific journal 'Klinische Monatsblatter fur Augenheilkunde', in which emphasized the clinical value of a cluster of external signs of damage to the cervical sympathetic nerve. Although J .F .Horner was not the first to describe such a syndrome, he was credited with the nomination. For the French, Francois Pourfour du Petit was the pioneer in that case. Born in Zurich, travelled Europe to be further educated, becoming later on Professor and Director of the University Clinic of Ophthalmology in his native city. In conclusion, J .F .Horner's adamantine character, hard work, assiduous teaching and skills in eye surgery made him one of the main contributors for the evolution of ophthalmology in the nineteenth century Central Europe.

On the shoulders of giants: the case of the Claude Bernard Horner syndrome

The syndrome called mainly in the French world as Claude Bernard Horner was frst described by Francois Pourfour du Petit, in 1727, but more thoroughly defned by the French physiologist, Claude Bernard, in 1852, followed by several physicians who offered different interpretations, mainly Silas Weir Mitchell (1864). The clinical and pharmacological implications, with the fnal wrap-up of the syndrome, were presented by a Swiss ophthalmologist, Johann Friedrich Horner, in 1869. This is a cooperative defnition of a syndrome of the sympathetic disruption of the ocular inervation, with fnal addings mainly about pharmacological approach by Horner, but with credits to many others clinicians and physiologists. This is the case of repeated presentations of a "new sign" in neurology with few additions from one to another.

A síndrome chamada principalmente no mundo francês como Claude Bernard Horner foi descrita pela primeira vez por François Pourfour du Petit, em 1727, mas mais profundamente defnida pelo fsiologista francês, Claude Bernard, em 1852, seguido por vários médicos que ofereceram interpretações diferentes, principalmente Silas Weir Mitchell (1864). As implicações clínicas e farmacológicas, com o desfecho fnal da síndrome, foram apresentadas por um oftalmologista suíço, Johann Friedrich Horner, em 1869. Esta é uma defnição cooperativa de uma síndrome da ruptura da inervação simpática ocular, com adições fnais principalmente sobre a abordagem farmacológica por Horner, mas com créditos para muitos outros médicos e fsiologistas. É o caso de repetidas apresentações de um "novo sinal" na neurologia, com poucas adições de um para o outro.

Johann Friedrich Horner and the Repeated Discovery of Oculosympathoparesis: Whose Syndrome Is It?

Disruption of cranial sympathetic tone leads to the symptom complex of miosis, ptosis, and hemifacial anhidrosis. It is widely believed that this phenomenon was discovered in 1869 by the Swiss ophthalmologist Johann Friedrich Horner, and as a result, the term Horner syndrome has become synonymous with the clinical presentation. However, the syndrome that would become Horner syndrome had actually been described several times before his report. François Pourfour du Petit documented the ocular effects of sympathetic trunk lesions in animal studies in 1727. Claude Bernard identified the full clinical triad in animal studies in 1852, and as a result, the condition is sometimes called Bernard syndrome. There were also 2 previous reports of ptosis and miosis resulting from sympathetic nerve damage in humans: 1 by Edward Selleck Hare in 1838 associated with brachial plexus tumor, and the other by Silas Weir Mitchell in 1864 associated with a gunshot wound to the neck. Although Horner was the first to objectively characterize the co-occurrence of vasomotor and ocular changes in a human patient, he did not identify the etiology of the condition, discuss its relationship to the sympathetic nervous system, or reference any of the previous studies in animals or humans. It is possible that a lack of familiarity with previous investigations delayed the full appreciation of the mechanism underlying this disorder.

Wilfred Harris' early description of cluster headache.

Wilfred Harris was a London neurologist with a significant interest in the treatment of neuralgia. Harris' descriptions of what he called migrainous neuralgia were the first recorded of cluster headache in the English medical literature. He was probably one of the first to describe the cluster phenomenon itself and the effectiveness of ergotamine in treating acute attacks of cluster headache. His seminal contributions to the clinical and therapeutic spectrum of cluster headache are reviewed.

Síndrome de Horner após intervenção cirúrgica para exérese de neuroblastoma cervivo-torácico / Horner's syndrome after surgical intervention for excision the cervical thoracic neuroblastoma

Objetivo: Relatar a ocorrência de síndrome de Horner após intervenção cirúrgica para exérese de neuroblastoma cervico-torácico. Local: Fundação Altino Ventura - Recife - PE - Brasil. Método: Relato de Caso. Conclusão: Salienta-se que neste caso a criança já tinha o diagnóstico anterior do neuroblastoma, mas a síndrome de Horner pode ser o primeiro sinal da doença. A ptose palpebral se deve a uma paresia do músculo tarsal de Muller, sendo portanto discreta. Como o eixo visual é livre e a acuidade visual preservada é necessário uma inspeção e biomicroscopia rigorosas na presença de ptose a fim de evitar que a síndrome de Horner passe desapercebida.

[Raeder's syndrome]. / Raeders syndrom.

Raeder's syndrome was first described by the Norwegian ophthalmologist J.G. Raeder in 1918 and again in 1924 by the same author. The seminal report was a description of a young male patient with unilateral periocular pain combined with ipsilateral miosis and ptosis, and with slight objective signs of trigeminal nerve involvement. Autopsy demonstrated a tumour at the base of the skull in the middle cranial fossa. Raeder coined the term "paratrigeminal" for the reported clinical picture. Later case reports by Raeder and other authors have included patients experiencing a more benign clinical course, some with spontaneous remissions, with unilateral periocular pain and ipsilateral signs of oculosympathetic paresis as the common denominator. This article is a chronological survey of the main contributions to the medical literature. Various definitions of the syndrome are outlined, including the more recent classification, as well as some pathophysiological and prognostic considerations.

Horner's syndrome revisited: with an update of the central pathway.

A brief summary is presented of the life of Johann Friedrich Horner, the eminent Swiss ophthalmologist, renowned for describing the effects of paralysis of the human cervical sympathetic nerves. His early education, the quality of his professional training, and the influence of his mentors, notably Carl Ludwig and Albrecht von Graefe, contributed to his discovery of the syndrome. The full text of Horner's original work (translated by J. F. Fulton, 1929a, Arch. Surg. 18:2025-2039) is cited. The history of clinical and experimental work carried out on the autonomic nervous system prior to Horner's discovery is reviewed, including the studies of Pourfour du Petit (cited in Fulton, 1929a and Singer and Underwood, 1962, Clarendon); Hare, 1838, Lond. Med. Gaz. 23:16-18; Bernard (cited by Singer and Underwood); Budge (1853, Acad. de Sci., p.377-378); Mitchell et al. (1864, Lippincott). Hare and Mitchell et al. came close to making the discovery but were apparently hindered by their inability to interpret the signs they elicited in their patients. The experiments of Claude Bernard gave succinct accounts of the effects of damage to the cervical sympathetic nerves in animals, although there appears to be no evidence that he made similar observations in humans. Horner was the first to give a detailed, scientifically supported account and accurately interpret the signs of cervical sympathetic nerve damage in a human subject. The anatomy of the pathway is reviewed and the detailed structure of its central part updated. Evidence from computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and single-photon-emission computerized tomography (SPECT) studies have confirmed that reciprocally connected centers in the insular cortex, central nucleus of amygdala, hypothalamus, mesencephalic and pontine tegmentum, nucleus of tractus solitarius, and the ventrolateral medulla form the central pathway. The nucleus of tractus solitarius is probably the main reflex center for the sympathetic system, whereas the ventrolateral medulla serves as the pathway through which the central neurons influence the preganglionic neurons of the thoracolumbar outflow. Emotional and sensory inputs from the frontal and somatosensory cortices provide the inputs needed by the insula to drive the sympathetic nervous system to produce appropriate responses.

The man behind the syndrome: Friedrich Horner.

Although oculosympathetic lesions were described in the early 18th century in animal experiments, detailed description in humans, with the well-known triad of miosis, ptosis and enophthalmos comprising Horner's syndrome, is accredited to the Swiss ophthalmologist Friedrich Horner (1831-1886). This paper briefly reviews the symptoms and localization of the lesion with currently available diagnostic aids, and sketches the eponymous life behind Horner's syndrome.