Downs

For 150 years, Downs Syndrome has constituted the archetypal mental disability, easily recognisable by distinct facial anomalies and physical stigmata. In a narrow medical sense, Downs syndrome is a common disorder caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British asylum medical superintendent who described the syndrome as Mongolism in a series of lectures in 1866. In 1959, the disorder was identified as achromosome 21 trisomy by the French paediatrician and geneticist Jerome Lejeune and has since been known as Downs Syndrome (in the English-speaking world) or Trisomy 21 (in many European countries). But children and adults born with this chromosomal abnormality have an important collective history beyondtheir evident importance to the history of medical science.David Wright, a Professor in the History of Medicine at McMaster University, looks at the care and treatment of Downs sufferers - described for much of history as idiots, - from Medieval Europe to the present day. The discovery of the genetic basis of the condition and the profound changes in attitudes, care, and early identification of Downs in the genetic era, reflects the fascinating medical and social history of the disorder.