Downs
The history of a disability
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:25th Aug '11
Should be back in stock very soon

For 150 years, Down's Syndrome has constituted the archetypal mental disability, easily recognisable by distinct facial anomalies and physical stigmata. In a narrow medical sense, Down's 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 a chromosome 21 trisomy by the French paediatrician and geneticist Jérôme Lejeune and has since been known as Down's 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 beyond their 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 Down's 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 Down's in the genetic era, reflects the fascinating medical and social history of the disorder.
David Wright has written a concise, yet thorough, overview of Down syndrome-from its changing history to the ethical quandary that our current knowledge provides us. * Bulletin of the History of Medicine *
- Winner of Winner of the British Society for the History of Science Dingle Prize, 2013.
ISBN: 9780199567935
Dimensions: 202mm x 144mm x 31mm
Weight: 372g
256 pages