History of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is often thought to be a fairly new illness, however, conditions with similar symptoms have been described in medical literature since the eighteenth century. This illness has been (and sometimes still is) known by several other names.

CFS by Any Other Name: In 1869, the neurologist George Beard called this group of symptoms neurasthenia. The term myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) began being used in medical literature in 1938 and is still in use today, particularly in the United Kingdom.

In 1988, the name chronic fatigue syndrome was introduced by a group of United States researchers at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). CFS is the designation most commonly used today, particularly in the U.S. Patients, who were familiar with the current biomedical research on the illness, later introduced the term chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS) in an effort to reduce the psychiatric stigma often associated with CFS.

In 1994, in cooperation with an international study group, the CDC revised the diagnostic criteria for CFS.