In the 5th century BC, Hippocrates wrote in his third book Of the epidemics (p 35):


 7. But there were also other fevers, as will be described. Many had their mouths affected with aphthous ulcerations. There were also many defluxions about the genital parts, and ulcerations, boils (phymata), externally and internally, about the groins. Watery ophthalmies of a chronic character, with pains; fungous excrescences of the eyelids, externally and internally, called fig, which destroyed the sight of many persons. There were fungous growths, in many other instances, on ulcers, especially on those seated on the genital organs. There were many attacks of carbuncle (anthrax) through the summer, and other affections, which are called “the putrefaction” (seps); also large ecthymata, and large tetters (herpetes) in many instances.¹

The syndrome was first clearly redescribed by the Greek ophthalmologist Benedict [Benediktos] Adamantiades in 1930–31² and again, independently, by the Turkish dermatologist Hulusi Behçet in 1937. According to Kaklamani et al,³ at the …