'Noteomielite' accompanied by acute amaurosis (1844). An early case of neuromyelitis optica

Abstract

So far, only very little is known about the early history of neuromyelitis optica (Devic's syndrome). Here, we discuss a then widely recognized but now forgotten 1844 report by the Genoese physician Giovanni Battista Pescetto (1806-1884) on a 42-year-old man, who simultaneously developed acute amaurosis and cervical myelitis. Pescetto's report represents the earliest account of a case of neuromyelitis optica in the Western literature known so far.