Since Marie, in 1886, first described acromegalia as a morbid entity, it has continued to awaken interest and its literature has steadily increased. Marie's first account, based on two cases in Charcot's wards at the Salpetrière, was exhaustive and left little to be added by later investigators except explanation of its pathogenesis. Under other names the disease was recognized long before Marie's day, for Sternberg has gathered several undoubted cases from literature as far back as 1552. One of Carl von Langer's two classes of gigantism, first announced in 1872, is clearly acromegalia. In 1884 Fritsche and Klebs described a characteristic case, but as an unknown disease. Since Marie's first systematic and accurate description, many reports of cases and explanations regarding its nature have been made.
Of the etiology or its predisposing causes practically nothing is known up to the present time. Its symptomatology is, on the other hand, so