Charcot-Leyden crystals and Curschmann spirals in asthmatic sputum.

Charcot-Leyden crystals and Curschmann spirals in asthmatic sputumALEX SAKULA More than a century has elapsed since the micro- scopic examination of the sputum of asthmatic patients revealed characteristic crystals (so called "asthma crystals") and spirals, which are now referred to respectively as Charcot-Leyden crystals and Curschmann spirals.This paper relates the story of their discovery, the eponymous personalities concerned, the development of our knowledge of these structures, and current views on their significance.Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) Charcot (fig 1) was born in 1825 in Paris and in 1853 qualified MD Paris.Virtually throughout his entire career he was associated with the great Paris hospital the Salpetriere, where he served from 1848 as interne and from 1862 as physician.He was at the Salpetriere when it was bombed in 1871 during the Franco- Prussian war.Initially, morbid anatomy was his rul- ing passion and the lung one of his special interests; his description of the pulmonary lobule remains a classic.1 2 In 1872 he became professor of patholo- gical anatomy.At the same time, however, he pursued his clinical studies, especially in the field of nervous diseases, in which his contributions to the knowledge of such conditions as tabes dorsalis, multiple sclero- sis, and hysteria were outstanding.In 1882 he was appointed to a chair in neurology, the first of its kind in the world.His lecture demonstrations at the Sal- petriere were famous and attracted students from afar, including Sigmund Freud in 1885.Charcot died of acute pulmonary oedema secondary to aortic val- vular disease in 1893.3It was early in his career at the Salpetriere that Charcot, with Charles-Philippe Robin (1821-1885), published in 1853 a report on the pathological findings in a case of leukaemia (leucocythe'mie) in which blood taken from the right ventricle and also