Walsh & Hoyt: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)

In 1920, H.G. Creutzfeldt (then working in Alzheimers laboratory) published the case of a 22-year-old woman with an illness characterized by dementia, tremor, spasticity, and possibly startle myoclonus. The illness progressed rapidly over 1 year and ended in the death of the patient. Creutzfeldt subsequently published further clinical and pathologic details of the case in a journal on neuropathology edited by Nissl. In 1921, Alfons Maria Jakob published a report based on the clinical and pathologic study of three cases he had collected over the previous 2 years and a review of a number of other possible cases reported previously by other authors, including Creutzfeldt. Jakob later published details on a fourth and a fifth case. A subsequent review of the pathologic material from these cases revealed that the case originally reported by Creutzfeldt was atypical, whereas two of Jakobs cases clearly satisfied current criteria for the condition most commonly known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD.