Heinrich Unverricht

Heinrich Unverricht is most remembered for his research of epilepsy, especially his work with progressive myoclonus epilepsies (PME). In 1891 he described a form of PME that was later come to be known as "Unverricht-Lundborg disease" (sometimes referred also as "Wagner–Unverricht syndrome".^[3][4]).

Equally notable, however, following Wagner (1863) and Virchow's (1866) initial clinical descriptions, in 1891^[5] he developed the concept of an intimate connection between rash and muscle weakness that defined a new disorder:

"...it seems to me that the skin appearance plays such an important role in the disease picture that the designation Polymyositis is not completely accurate. In our case, the partnership of the skin and muscle disease allows us to use the elocution Dermatomyositis..." (translation).^[6]

Unverricht, died of hemiplegia complicating chronic nephritis on April 22 1912, at Magdeburg, Germany.^[1]