The Person Behind the Syndrome

A decade after the publication of The Man Behind the Syndrome, which was warmly received, particularly by medical geneticists, syndromologists and those doctors from many different dis- ciplines with an interest in medical history, Peter and Greta Beighton now present the second volume of their work, promised ten years ago. The length of time which has passed since the pub- lication of the first book gives an inkling of the extraordinary effort involved on the part of the authors in collecting the necessary biographical data and the portraits of their subjects. The Person Behind the Syndrome conforms exactly in structure, quality and size with the first volume, thus facilitating the use of the series. Again we find detailed presentations of a hundred people who have given their names to disorders or syndromes which are thought to have a significant genetic or chromosomal component (with a photograph or portrait, biography, com- mentary on the development of nomenclature and references). The reader finds information not only on the doctor and/or scientist under discussion, but also, as in the previous volume, on the person behind the name. This is followed by brief, un illustrated biographies of about seventy, mostly younger and, in some cases, still professionally active personalities.