Les précurseurs du diagnostic du syndrome d'apnées du sommeil : hommage au Pr Bernard Duron

The first description of apneas during sleep was literary and published by Charles Dickens in 1836 through a character in “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club”; it took 120 years for its scientific publication, since the Pickwick syndrome was described in 1956 by C.S. Burwell. A decade later a team of French neurophysiologists in Marseille, headed by H. Gastaut working with B. Duron and C.A. Tassinari, realized in 1965 the first polygraphic recordings of apneas during sleep and described the essential pathophysiological mechanisms. Bernard Duron continued his academic career in Amiens where his team was among the pioneers in France for the diagnosis and treatment of this condition whose severity and frequency are now recognized.