• Carlos H Schenck, Claudio L Bassetti, Isabelle Arnulf, and Emmanuel Mignot.
• Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center, Department of Psychiatry, Hennepin County Medical Center, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN 55415, USA. Schen010@umn.edu
• J Clin Sleep Med. 2007 Apr 15;3(3):301-11.

Study ObjectivesTo publish the first English translations, with commentary, of the original reports describing narcolepsy and cataplexy by Westphal in German (1877) and by Gélineau in French (1880).MethodsA professional translation service translated the 2 reports from either German or French to English, with each translation then being slightly edited by one of the authors. All authors then provided commentary.ResultsBoth Westphal and Gélineau correctly identified and described the new clinical entities of cataplexy and narcolepsy, with recurrent, self-limited sleep attacks and/or cataplectic attacks affecting 2 otherwise healthy people. Narcolepsy was named by Gélineau (and cataplexy was named by Henneberg in 1916). The evidence in both cases is sufficiently convincing to conclude that they were likely each HLA-DQB1*0602 positive and hypocretin deficient.ConclusionsThe original descriptions of narcolepsy and cataplexy are now available in English, allowing for extensive clinical and historical commentary.

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