Although general attention has been directed to the myopathies since Aran's1 communication published in 1850 and much has been written regarding them, our insight into the pathogenesis of this group of diseases has remained rather superficial and controversial.
Oppenheim,2 in summing up his communication on the myopathies before the Seventeenth International Congress of Medicine in London, stated that the concept of the myopathies is as yet not firmly established and that the characteristics of the various groups are not clearly delineated, nor their dividing lines sharply drawn.
In an editorial3 discussion of Bramwell's4 Bradshaw lecture on the muscular dystrophies in the Lancet in 1925, it was pointed out that one is not likely to reach any rational conception of treatment of the myopathies from clinical studies alone, and that chemical investigation in these conditions is an uncultivated field which will repay any labor that is spent