Rust’s disease

Rust’s disease

An obsolete, nonspecific term attributed to JN Rust (1775–1840), which formerly dignified:
(1) Tuberculosis of the first and second vertebrae; 
(2) Lesions of any aetiology (e.g., degenerative, infectious, neoplastic, traumatic) of the suboccipital region, which may be accompanied by cardiac arrhthymia, lingual atrophy, hypoglossal and/or vagal nerve paralysis, and trigeminal neuralgia.