Editors: R. Shane Tubbs, Rod J. Oskouian, Jeffrey P. Blount, W. Jerry Oakes

2019

Our knowledge of the occult spinal dysraphisms has evolved significantly since the first observations of the various manifestations of this term. Spinal dysraphisms, in general, have been observed and studied by many greats in the history of medicine including Morgagni and von Recklinghausen. The term is attributed to Lichtenstein (1940) who in describing dorsal midline fusion defects found that this constellation of pathological findings was “adequately designated by the term dysraphism or status dysraphicus.”