WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Experts who gave their names to medical conditions

THIS week, Down’s syndrome.

DOWN’S syndrome is caused by an extra copy of a particular chromosome (bundles of different genes in the middle of our cells) which can result in a characteristic physical appearance and learning difficulties.

WHO IS IT NAMED AFTER? James Langdon Down was born in Cornwall in 1828. He started working in his father’s chemist shop at 14. His intelligence was spotted by the family vicar, who gave him a science book after which Down became determined to be a doctor. At 18, he began training at the Royal London Hospital, later becoming head of a Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots in Surrey. Ten per cent of the residents had common characteristics which in 1866 he named Mongolism because of their upward tilting eyes. Down died of a heart attack at 67 in 1896. His term Mongolism became widely used but objections from scientists and Mongolia’s government led to the syndrome being renamed Down’s syndrome.