ABSTRACT
The first description of restless legs syndrome (RLS) is usually credited to the XVII century English physician and scientist Thomas Willis (1,2). He considered RLS to be caused by “convulsive distempers,” such as epileptic activity. However, he did not suggest whether it was an inborn or an acquired condition. Progress over the following two and a half centuries was slow, with RLS having been mostly understood as a psychogenic disorder (3-5). In the 1940s, RLS was ascribed to various medical conditions, such as a vascular cause (6) or a familial origin with exacerbation during pregnancy (7).
