Agostino Carducci, Marc Dax and Stigler's law of eponymy

Excerpt

The title of the article by Bugiani M. and Bugiani O. [1] proposes a question: “Marchiafava-Bignami disease: why not Marchiafava-Bignami-Carducci disease?”. A possible answer is: because, even in neurological nosology, the Stigler's law of eponymy applies: "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer" [2]. The “law” was formulated by the statistics professor Stephen Stigler, provocatively giving his name (a flagrant violation of the “Institutional norm of humility” [3]) to the concepts discussed by sociologist Robert K. Merton [3], who formulated the hypothesis that all scientific discoveries are in principle multiple. The name associated with the discovery depends on the notoriety of the work and the fame of its publisher; entities may be named long time after their discovery; in general, little attention is paid to the “designator”. Thus, “eponyms are often not just famed but rather framed beneficiaries of their award” [4]. …