In 1916, Guillain, Barré and Strohl described a syndrome in which there is slowly progressive ascending paralysis of the body, starting in the lower extremities, and which is characterized by albuminocytologic dissociation of the cerebrospinal fluid (increase in protein without an increase in the cell count) and a favorable prognosis. Previous to that time there were many reports of cases of polyneuritis resembling this syndrome, but they did not have detailed descriptions of the cerebrospinal fluid. Since then, there have been numerous cases reported of various neuritides which, although they do not have all the characteristics described by Guillain and his co-workers, nevertheless bear a resemblance to the syndrome and perhaps represent different degrees of severity of this disease of unknown cause.
Among these related syndromes, the following have been included: "acute infective polyneuritis," "acute febrile polyneuritis of unknown origin," "acute neuronitis," "acute benign infectious myelitis," "acute infective meningomyeloneuritis," "polyneuritis