On October 24, English physician William Withey Gull presented the first thorough description of anorexia nervosa in an address before the Clinical Society of London. The eating disorder was also called apepsia hysterica and anorexia hysterica at the time. Gull made an earlier preliminary report of the syndrome at the 1868 meeting of the British Medical Association, at Oxford. That report was later published in The Lancet of August 8, 1868. A novel sidelight to Gull's career is that he is occasionally mentioned as possibly being the notorious London murderer, "Jack the Ripper."

Type of event: Other Notable Event

Country: United Kingdom

Region: Europe and the former USSR