The history of the description of retinopathy in onchocerciasis

Up until 1930 the scientific community considered African onchocerciasis to be a pure skin disease and not the blinding disease encountered in America. Jean Hissette, a belgian general practitioner with a special interest in eye pathology, was the first to document onchocerciasis in Africa as a blinding disease. Between 1931 and 1938, he published a series of articles on the subject, based on the experience he gained from several expeditions in the endemic Babindi country (Belgian Congo). His discussions with J Bryant in 1932 stimulated the latter to publish an article in 1935 on the posible relationship between Onchocerca volvulus and endemic choroiditis in Sudan. As the result of his collaboration with R Strong, an expert from Harvard on the Central American form of the disease, Hissette wrote a paper that appeared in 1938 as a supplement to the American Journal of Tropical Medicine. In this landmark paper he describes with great precision the chorioretinitis of the posterior pole typical of onchocerciasis, later to be known as the Hissette-Ridley fundus. Although the names of the two men are linked, Hissette's work preceded Harold Ridley's publication in the BJO on ocular onchocerciasis in Ghana by more than a decade.