Winterbottom's sign is a swelling of lymph nodes (lymphadenopathy) along the posterior cervical lymph node chain, associated with the early phase of African trypanosomiasis (African sleeping sickness), a disease caused by the parasites Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense and Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. It may be suggestive of cerebral infection.
The sign was first reported by the English physician Thomas Masterman Winterbottom in 1803. Winterbottom observed that slave traders would palpate the necks of slaves before purchasing them, likely to prevent losses from their human merchandise by sleeping sickness.
External links
References
Ormerod WE (October 1991). "Hypothesis: the significance of Winterbottom's sign". J Trop Med Hyg. 94 (5): 338–40. PMID 1942213. /wiki/PMID_(identifier) ↩
Winterbottom, Thomas (1803). An account of the native Africans in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, to which is added an account of the present state of medicine among them. Vol. 2. London: C. Whittingham. pp. 29–31. Retrieved 10 March 2025 – via Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=KmSoFaa29noC ↩
de Raadt, Peter (11–28 October 2005). The history of sleeping sickness: Opening up towards Europe. Fourth International Course on African Trypanosomoses. Tunis. Archived from the original on March 23, 2008 – via World Health Organization. https://web.archive.org/web/20080323231305/http://www.who.int/trypanosomiasis_african/country/history/en/index4.html ↩
Miles, Tom. "The Winterbottom Catalogue". www.bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2019-03-18. Retrieved 2009-03-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20190318130141/http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/acrossuk/worknat/full/Projects/winterbottom/index.html ↩
Cox, F.E.G. (June 2004). "History of sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis)". Infectious Disease Clinics of North America. 18 (2). doi:10.1016/j.idc.2004.01.004. PMID 15145378. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩