Who Discovered Dwarfism?
Posted In: Diseases.
Dwarfism is nothing new and records mentioning dwarfism have been found throughout the history of human civilization. The ancient Egyptians have records of dwarfism and they were considered as people with supernatural powers. The modern day understanding of dwarfism, as we know it, can be credited to many scientists and physician who have discovered that dwarfism is actually a form of genetic or inherited disease.
The first scientist to mention Dwarfism was Pierre Maroteaux, a French physician and scientist. He was born in 1929 and is largely credited to the discovery of dwarfism by the scientific society because he discovered the link between genetic condition and prenatal micromelic of the patients. This discovery was widely known as Lamy-Maroteaux Syndrome, a very important topic in the field of dwarfism.
Another person who contributed to this theory was Maurice Lamy, another renowned French physician. Pierre Morateaux, Maurice Lamy and their team was studying the order and number of chromosomes of patients who are dwarf when they made this discovery. The most common form of dwarfish, Achondroplasia, was discovered by Dr. John Wasmuth, a biochemist and researcher from the US.
Dr. John Wasmuth
He and his team were researching on dwarfism in 1994 when they found the cause of Achondroplasia. They published their findings, which mainly state that the cause of this kind of dwarfism is mainly the fibroblast growth factor receptor-3 gene. This kind of gene is a part of chromosome 4. These findings were considered as one of the most important discovery in the field of dwarfism. Dr. John Wasmuth initially served as a researcher at the University’s College of Medicine in 1977. He later served as the Director at National Human Genome Center. He died on January 1996 in California at the age of 49.