Romberg and his sign.

Moritz Heinrich Romberg (1795-1873) acquired much of the wisdom and attitudes prevailing in English medicine when in 1820 he translated into German, Andrew Marshall's (1742-1813) The Morbid Anatomy of the Brain and Charles Bell's The Nervous System of the Human Body. He revolutionised European neurology, publishing his Lehrbuch der Nervenkrankheiten des Menschen: the first systematic textbook in neurology. Romberg's contribution to neurology, and his establishing tabes dorsalis as a distinctive disease were of crucial importance. Romberg's sign, once synonymous with tabes dorsalis, became recognised as common to all proprioceptive disorders of the legs. His several major clinical contributions included: a classic description of achondroplasia, progressive facial hemiatrophy, and an unmistakable description of the pupils in tertiary syphilis before E.J. Remak and Argyll Robertson. Copyright 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel.