Hyphenated history: Osgood-Schlatter disease

Abstract

The language of orthopedics is rather interesting in that it often credits the original describers or those who popularized a disease process by attaching their names to the disease process in question. These so-called "eponyms" have become quite commonplace in our literature and offer important orthopedic historical insight. Often throughout history, the simultaneous discovery of a disorder is described by two independent researchers, resulting in a hyphenated eponym. Such is the case in the observations made by two physicians, Robert Bayley Osgood and Carl Schlatter, concerning overuse injuries of the tibial tubercle in adolescents. This disorder subsequently became known as "Osgood-Schlatter disease, and aspects of its hyphenated history are the focus of this paper.