Copyright © 2005, European Society of Cardiology
What Benjamin Babington, William Osler, Frederick Weber, and Henri Rendu did not know
Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LABioMed) at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and UCLA, C-1-A, 1124 West Carson St, Torrance, CA 90502, USA
* Tel.: +1 310 222 3891; fax: +1 310 782 1837. Email address: rhirschberg@labiomed.org
Received 18 August 2005; revised 29 August 2005; accepted 31 August 2005
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
See article by Fernandez-L [6] (pages 235–248) in this issue.
Epistaxis is a reasonably common and usually minor condition, although in rare cases it can be severe and life threatening. Benjamin Guy Babington described a family with individual members in five generations who had commonly and at times severe epistaxis, and he recognized this as an inherited epistaxis syndrome [1]. Diagnostic acuity of the time was limited, leading to confusion between familial epistaxis and other hemorrhagic diatheses, especially hemophilia. Henri Rendu's observations provided some clarification. He described the case of a 52-year-old male with frequent epistaxis and a similar history in his brother and mother. Moreover, Rendu recognized blanching angiomata on the nose, cheek, and lips of his patient [2]. A more detailed study of cases of the cutaneous-telangiectases-with-epistaxis syndrome was provided by William Osler and Frederick Parks Weber [3,4]. Osler noted that frequent and severe nose