Every disease that has been diagnosed has been at the expense of someone who had it first. The history of Steven Johnson Syndrome (SJS) is just the same. The two men responsible for identifying SJS are Albert Stevens, a surgeon, and Frank Johnson, a pediatrician.

Albert Stevens was born in 1884 in Rangoon, India. In 1894, he moved to the United States and received his B.A. from Yale University in 1905, and he went to Oxford on a Rhoades scholarship in 1908. He received an M.D. degree from Columbia University in 1915 and subsequently served in World War I as an assistant surgeon. While he was assisting in WWI, he was captured by the Germans, who kept him as a prisoner of war until the war ended. After being released, he came back to the United States and continued as a full-time surgeon at Bellevue Hospital, NYC.

Dr. Frank Johnson graduated from Rutgers College in 1916 and received his M.D. degree from Columbia University in 1920. His life is less documented than Dr. Albert’s and how and when they met is historically unknown. It is assumed they both met at Columbia University where they were studying medicine, and then later while they were both full-time staff members at Bellevue Hospital, NYC. Though, neither was an ophthalmologist, they collaborated on a publication “A New Eruptive Fever Associated with Stomatitis and Ophthalmia” for the American Journal of Diseases of Children in December 1922.

The journal was known under that name from 1911 to the 1990’s, and then known as the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, and now JAMA Pediatrics. The publication was on a case study involving two young boys admitted to Bellevue Hospital in NYC with oval, dark red to purple eruptions on their skin, separate from normal tissue. They documented that they had “bull’s-eye” appearance. The two boys also had fever, inflamed mucus membranes, and conjunctivitis. However, only one of the boys had complete loss of his vision.

The two doctors had never seen such a case before, and nor had their colleagues. Under the consultation of many other physicians, they published the case study, and this was the first documented case of Steven-Johnson Syndrome. Historically, it is unknown when the new-eruptive fever became formally known as SJS. Now, SJS is understood as an immune hypersensitivity complex involving the skin and mucus membranes. We further understand SJS as a mild form of toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN).
To distinguish between SJS and TEN, SJS involves less than 10% of the body’s surface to be detached from the epidermis. The overlapping diagnosis is when there is 10-30% of detachment from the epidermis, and then there is more than 30%, it is called TEN. Because of the work of doctors Albert and Frank, we now know that the ocular manifestations of SJS or TEN are very severe and must be treated promptly.

If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with SJS or TEN due to medical error or negligence, contact us today. Our attorneys are helping hundreds of victims find some financial and judicial justice.