BORNSTEIN, B, BECHAR, M, LASS, H · Psychiatria et neurologia · 1960
This is an early medical case report from 1960 describing five patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), a condition causing muscle pain and neurological symptoms. The authors documented the clinical features these patients experienced, helping establish that ME was a recognizable medical condition rather than a psychiatric illness. This foundational work contributed to understanding ME as a legitimate organic disease.
This is a historically significant early clinical description that helped establish ME as a recognized medical condition with specific neurological and muscular features. Such foundational case reports were essential in the 1960s to distinguish ME from psychiatric disorders and to prompt further medical investigation into the condition's biological basis.
This small case series cannot establish the prevalence, etiology, or natural history of ME. It does not prove causation of any biological mechanisms and cannot generalize findings beyond the five observed patients. Modern diagnostic and laboratory standards were unavailable in 1960, so clinical observations cannot be confirmed by current methods.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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