The syndrome of ascending paralysis was described by Landry1 in 1859, and the first report of what is now termed infectious mononucleosis was made by Pfeiffer2 in 1889. In 1916 Guillain, Barré, and Strohl3 reported that facial diplegia and a dispro-portionate increase in the cerebrospinal fluid protein might occur in Landry's paralysis. Since 1927 when Draganesco and Claudian4 first referred to this as the "Guillain-Barré" syndrome, this term has come into wide us-age. As Guillain himself5 later stated that such cases could occur without the "albuminocytologic dissociation," and as it has been repeatedly reported that otherwise identical cases occur without facial diplegia, the term "Guillain-Barré" syndrome seems to have little special merit. Many other terms have been applied to the same condition, including the name "neuronitis."
In 1931 Johansen6 and also Epstein and Dameshek7 reported that the nervous system might be involved