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Who was the first to describe anorexia nervosa: Gull or Lasègue?

1989; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 19; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0033291700005559

1469-8978

Walter Vandereycken, Jan W. van Deth,

Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology

Leading articles or textbooks on anorexia nervosa generally give credit for its discovery to either the British physician William Withey Gull or to the French neuropsychiatrist Ernest Charles Lasègue. Although the major contributions of both men show a remarkable but independent coincidence around 1873, Gull is mostly given a slight priority because of a rather cryptic mention of an anorexia-like condition in a paper read in 1868. An analysis of the events, however, shows that the British physician from London does not really deserve this honour. For no clear-cut priority for either man can be established.