Raynaud’s syndrome

In Europe, the broad term Raynaud’s phenomenon is used to described any form of cold-related vasospasm. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century debate over the mechanism of gangrene there was a group of cases that could not be explained by ‘ossification by the arteries’ not by great obstacles in the ‘vascular cavities’.

In 1862, the young French physician Maurice Raynaud meticulously described in his medical school thesis 25 patients with spontaneous symmetric gangrene of the extremities.

He described an initial ‘pallor’ that was replaced in more severe cases by a cyanotic color and then a vermillion that finally gave way to the normal pink.

Sir Jonathan Hutchinson

In 1888, Raynaud’s thesis was translated into English and a year later Sir Jonathan Hutchinson gave Raynaud’s eponym to the digital vasospastic phenomenon previously described in 1862.

He realized that the symptoms described by Raynaud could be associated with a number of disorders and were not due to one disease. In 1896, he proposed the term ‘Raynaud’s phenomenon’ to described these vasospastic attacks.

In 1932, Allen and Brown, established minimal criteria for diagnosing Raynaud’s disease: bilaterality of symptoms; absence of gangrene; absence of other primary disease, especially collagen-vascular diseases: and symptoms of at least 2 years’ duration.
Raynaud’s syndrome