Greta Beighton – författare

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.

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.

The Man Behind the Syndrome by my friends and colleagues Peter and Greta Beighton is a delightful book which will be read eagedy and with keen intellectual pleasure by all human, medical, and dinical genetieists. The reader with a historical tum of mind will note right away that the book achieyes more than the usual entry in a dictionary of seientific biography. In addition to the standard professional data, it gives a photo and some personal glimpses of the man, allowing the reader to appreeiate his human qualities as weIl. This volume contains, so to speak, the creme de la creme, namely, those in a group whose names are daily on the lips of every practicing dinical geneticist. This interesting and instructive book is commended to all in medical genetics and the history of medieine with the highest enthusiasm and gratitude to its authors for undertaking this labor of love. A second volume is planned for more recently delineated disorders for which an eponym is not yet widely used.