Marfan syndrome.

It is almost a century since Dr Antoine Bernard Marfan (1858-1942) presented Gabrielle P to the Medical Society of Paris in 1896' and the understanding of the condition which carries his name continues to expand. Various descriptions of similar syndromes predate that of Marfan. Williams2 and Conan-Doyle in his A study in scarlet3 may, in fact, have recognised the disorder before Marfan. With the advantage of retrospect, various figures including Paga- nini4 and more recently Abraham Lincoln5 have been proposed to have suffered from Marfan syndrome. McKusick6 gave a classic account of the clinical features of the disorder in the first edition of Heritable disorders of connective tissue.