In 1876, Thomsen1 wrote his famous dissertation on congenital myotonia, tracing the condition throughout three generations of his own family. He gave credit for the original description of this malady to Bell.2 In 1886, Erb3 elaborated the concept of myotonia.
Following the issuance of Erb's monograph there appeared reports of conditions that were considered at first to be atypical myotonia congenita. The earliest of these reports was that of Délèage,4 in 1890. Good descriptions of such cases were given by Pelizaeus,5 in 1897, and by Hoffmann,6 in 1900. Rossolimo,7 in 1902, gave the new clinical syndrome the name of myotonie atrophique (myotonia atrophica), although he considered the atrophy to have complicated a preexisting myotonia congenita. In 1909 the subject was clarified, and the clinical entity of myotonia atrophica emerged through the independent and almost simultaneous publications of Batten and Gibb8 and Steinert.