IN THE year 1895 deQuervain, a surgeon in the Kocher Clinic, described a painful condition of the wrist which was localized in the region of the radial styloid process. The malady was found to be a stenosing tendovaginitis of the most lateral osteofibrous canal on the dorsum of the distal end of the radius through which pass the tendons of the extensor pollicis brevis and the abductor pollicis longus. At that time deQuervain reported on five patients whom he had treated either by immobilization or incision of the stenosed osteofibrous canal. After this numerous reports appeared in the foreign literature.
In 1898 Hoffman,1 unaware of deQuervain's publication, reported 12 similar cases which he had seen, the first report in the American literature concerning this condition. From that time until 1930 there was little mention of the condition, the only publications being those of Schneider,2 Finkelstein,3 and Stein.