gms | German Medical Science

In cases of quite well known diseases the first describer of details have sometimes forgotten or mistaken. Already eight hundred years ago Sayyid Ismail Al Jurjani in Persien have supposed a connection between goiter and exophthalmus. Further observations have been done by Caleb Hillier Parry in 1796, by G. Flajani in 1802 and by Antonio Guiseppe Testa in 1810 in Italy, too. Robert James Graves described in Irland in 1835 as well as Carl Adolf v. Basedow in Germany in 1840 a disorder, characterized by exophthalmus, tachycardia and goiter - known as Merseburger Trias, M. Basedow or goggle-eyes-kachexia. R. Brain termed all changes of the eyes in hyperthyreoidism as endocrine orbitopathy in 1959. There are documented many other changes of the eyes in hyperthyreoidism. The visible sclera above the cornea looking straight on is usually known as Dalrymple'-sign. Dalrymple described this feature in his famous work "The Pathology of the Eye" in 1852. This phenomena was fully documented by William White Cooper in 1849. There is a discussion on the priority of this symptom as well as on the physician Cooper and Dalrymple.