In 1883, Dr. Cleland was the first to describe posterior-fossa abnormalities in an article entitled "Contribution to the study of spina bifida, encephalocele, and anencephalus" in the Journal of Anatomy and Physiology.

In 1891, Dr. Hans Chiari wrote an article in the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschriff entitled “Concerning alterations in the cerebellum resulting from cerebral hydrocephalus." He was able to further acknowledge Dr. Cleland's paper and added his own means of classifying this disorder by types I, II, and III.

In 1896, Dr. Chiari offered the following definition of the disorder: “Peg like elongation of the tonsils and medial part of the inferior lobes of the cerebellum which go along the medulla into the cervical canal”

In 1907 Schwalbe and Gredig, students of Arnold in Heidelberg describe a total of 4 more cases and tagged Arnold’s name on to the Chiari Malformation.