For those of us who are involved in the care of patients with this condition, the recorded work of Biorn Signurdsson (1913-1953) in connection with the Akureyn outbreak in Iceland which affected over 1000 patients, both children and adults was repeated by Melvin Ramsay when he was involved in the outbreak in his hospital which became known as the "Royal Free Disease" but defined by him as Myalg...

The reports of the 15 recorded outbreaks of benign myalgic encephalomyelitis have been reviewed and in one instance the original clinical data studied. We believe that a lot of these epidemics were psychosocial phenomena caused by one of two mechanisms, either mass hysteria on the part of the patients or altered medical perception of the community. We suggest that the name "myalgia nervosa" sho...