Neurofibromatosis: Past, Present, and Future

Ten years ago, the Journal published my review of von Recklinghausen neurofibromatosis,1 now aptly called neurofibromatosis 1. In that article, I emphasized a previously arcane feature of the disorder, for which a new term was coined: "Lisch nodule." When I met Professor Lisch, who had pointed out the association of the nodules with neurofibromatosis in 1937,2 for the first time in May 1990, he startled me with his gratitude both for the term's having been used in the first place and for its having immediately secured a place in the modern medical lexicon. Neither Richard Lewis3 nor I realized when . . .