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Vasospasm of the digital arteries
M Raynaud (1834-1881) French physician. He was the son of a university professor and graduated from the medical school in Paris in 1862. He submitted a thesis which described his syndrome and established his name in medicine. He commenced his medical studies with the help of his uncle, A GM Vernois, the well-known Parisian physician. He never achieved a senior appointment in any of the Parisian hospitals but he was attached to the Hotel Dieu, Laboisiere and the Charite Hospitals on different occasions. He was made an officer of the French Legion d'Honneur in 1871 and elected to the Academic de Medecine in 1879. He always wanted to hold a Chair of Medical History in Paris, but died before the International Medical Congress in London in 188. His address on "Scepticism in Medicine, past and present" was read by one of his colleagues. He wrote a book "Medicine in Moliere's time" and an article on Asclepiades of Bathyinia. He was an excellent teacher and fine clinician. He died suddenly after some years of cardiac disease.

Pressure over the left iliac fossa causes pain in the right iliac fossa in acute appendicitis.
T Rovsing (1862-1927) Danish surgeon. Professor of Surgery, University of Copenhagen. He graduated from the University of Copenhagen in medicine in 1885 and in 1899 was appointed Professor of Operative Surgery. Initially this appointment did not provide him with hospital beds and he therefore commenced a private surgical nursing home to overcome this problem. In 1904 he was put in charge of the Fredericks Hospital as senior surgeon and largely due to his advocacy for better surgical accommodation, the Rigs hospital was commenced in 1905 and opened in 1910. Always a forceful and imposing individual, he was in his element when questioning time honoured principles and is said to have shattered the reputation of iodoform as an antiseptic. Primarily famous as an abdominal surgeon, he wrote extensively on diseases of the bladder and gall bladder and became internationally recognised. He acquired a financial interest in a medical journal which he subsequently owned and finally presented to the Danish Medical Society which gives some idea of his entrepreneurial capacity. In 1926 he was forced to retire due to heart disease and later was diagnosed as having a malignancy of the larynx for which he received X-ray therapy without avail. Although time has shown his sign not to be of diagnostic value, he played a major role in promoting surgery in Denmark.