Downs

1. Paagman.nl
   Downs - Wright, David

   28 days

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Attitudes to Down's syndrome have changed beyond measure in recent years, and over the centuries. David Wright traces the fascinating story, beginning in medieval Europe, when sufferers were dismissed as `idiots', through to the pioneering work of the Victorian physician John Langdon-Down 150 years ago, and---most important of all---the discovery in 1959 that its cause was genetic. This is a dramatic story of how lives have been transformed by social change and scientific discovery

Down's syndrome has become the most recognizable form of mental disability, and is one of the world's most common chromosomal disorders. Identified by John Langdon-Down in a series of lectures in 1866, it is a condition characterized by distinct facial anomalies, disability in intellectual development, and physical stigmata. It wasn't until 1959, when French paediatrician and geneticist Jerome Lejeune identified the disorder as arising from an extra copy of chromosome 21, that it became more commonly known as Down's syndrome

David Wright examines both the fascinating scientific story of its discovery as well as its changing social history, using examples from medieval Europe to the present day. He examines the institutionalization of those considered `mentally retarded' in state asylums, the eugenics movement, and the sterilization of the `mentally unfit'. The discovery of the genetic basis of the condition profoundly changed attitudes and care, and allowed early identification with prenatal testing. Medical advances have coincided with changing social and political contexts, causing a move from institutions to care in the community. By the end of the twentieth century individuals with Down's syndrome, and the ethical debates that surrounded them, had finally moved into the mainstream.