According to Ong andHho1 fournier’s gangrene was originally described by Baurienne in 1764, but named by jean Alfred Fournier(1832 - 1914) in 1883 when he described the occurrence of a condition characterised by sudden onset in previously healthy young men, rapid progression to gangrene and absence of a definite cause, as quoted by Stephens et al.2 and Laor et al.3 the Persian physician Avicenna (980 - 1037) had earlier described the same condition in his book the Canon of Medicine, as quoted by Nathan.4 it is now known that Fournier’s gangrene is caused by acute infection of the tissues of the perineum, evolving in a sudden and unpredictable manner to necrotising cellulitis due to anaerobic bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, or both. Although the condition is rare in absolute terms, over 1726 cases have been reported in the English literature, with a male/female ratio of …show more content…
The average age of the patients in our series was 48.3 years (range 28 - 66 years). An intriguing finding was the long interval between onset of symptoms and presentation to hospital (mean 7.5 days, range 3 - 14 days). This was consistent with the reports of Beniziri et al.,5 Ayan et al.15 and Safioleas et al.,17 but much longer than the find-ings of Nisbet et al.18 and Dahm et