History of acute polyradiculoneuropathy (part 1): The prehistory of Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is an acute inflammatory polyradiculoneuropathy described in 1916 by Guillain, Barré, and Strohl. However, many similar cases had been reported earlier under various terms, with less detail and with various explanations about its pathophysiologic origin. Based on the analysis of old articles, we propose an overview of the history of acute inflammatory polyradiculoneuropathy before the official description of GBS.