Charcot Marie Tooth disease (CMT): historical perspectives and evolution

Prior to Charcot and Marie’s and Tooth’s reports, patients with peroneal muscular atrophy had been described by Virchow, Eulenburg, Friedreich, Osler, and others. In February 1886, Charcot and Marie published their original description of five patients who had what they called Progressive Muscular Atrophy. They surmised that the lesion could be in the spinal cord. Three months later, Tooth presented his M.D. degree thesis entitled “Peroneal Type of Progressive Muscular Atrophy”, to the University of Cambridge, UK. Tooth localized the pathology to the peripheral nerves. Dyck and Lambert (Arch Neurol 18:619–625, 1968) classified several CMT kinships based on differences in modes of inheritance, natural history, biochemical features, nerve conduction velocity, and pathologic characteristics. This article will focus on historical landmarks and major discoveries pertinent to the disease since its original description through the second half of the twentieth century.