The Neurotic Edema (Hereditary Angioedema)

Although sporadic descriptions of angioneurotic edema can be found in the nineteenth-century European medical literature, the paper of Sir William Osier in 1888 clearly established the clinical entity with impeccable detail.1 Osier pointed out the hereditary transmission of angioneurotic edema as an autosomal dominant phenomenon (in latter-day parlance) and the major clinical manifestations of the trait as recurrent episodes of circumscribed edema of the skin, recurrent bouts of abdominal colic, the sometimes fatal glottic edema and occasional geographical mottling of the skin. He concluded this brilliant manuscript by stating "that we have to do here with clinical facts and observations . . .