S. Giménez-Roldán, J. C. Ara Torralba
Neurosciences and History 2026;14(1): 1-13
Type of article: ORIGINAL
AUTHORS
S. Giménez-Roldán1, J. C. Ara Torralba2
1Former head and professor of the Department of Neurology. Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain.
2Department of Linguistics and Hispanic Literature. Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain.
ABSTRACT
Joaquín Costa (1846-1911) was regarded as an intellectual and moral reference in the promotion of democratic regeneration. A polymath, he produced a vast body of written work despite suffering a neuromuscular disease from the age of 20 years, which resulted in a severe disability that progressed over four decades. Between 1864 and 1878, he wrote personal notes and autobiographical texts about daily events, ideas, and projects, in addition to describing the progression of his condition. Costa’s rare symptoms, including head drop, baffled the many doctors he consulted. His close friend Luis Simarro, a renowned neurologist and neurohistologist who was training in Paris at the time, got him an appointment with Jean-Martin Charcot in 1882. Charcot told Costa that he had a primary muscle disorder, and requested permission to take pictures of his back. Through Costa’s letters and autobiographical notes, which are available digitally at the Historical Archive of the Province of Huesca (in Aragon, Spain), the disease presents as a hereditary scapuloperoneal atrophy, with eight affected family members spanning four generations. Costa’s detailed self-reported observations over the last third of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century preceded Davidenkov’s groundbreaking descriptions between 1927 and 1934.
KEYWORDS
Joaquín Costa, scapuloperoneal atrophy, Luis Simarro, Jean-Martin Charcot, Romain Vigouroux, Daniel Urrabieta Vierge
Neurosciences and History 2026;14(1): 1-13
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