[Computerized records in vascular pathology. IV. Computer-assisted management in Raynaud's phenomenon]

Abstract

The "dead finger" was first introduced into medical language in 1862 during the inaugural thesis of Maurice Raynaud: "of local asphyxia and symmetrical gangrene of the extremities". It has never ceased to stimulate interest since that date and to excite passionate speeches. Numerous reports of studies have been published since 1862 and "Raynaud's disease" has become a "syndrome", "phenomenon" or even "idiopathic disease" as a function of the author and the prevailing fashion, thus increasing the original confusion. However, it is now recognized that vasomotor disorders are not due to a single cause: apart from the primary forms of apparently purely spasmodic etiology, numerous affections accompanying these anomalies have been discovered.