History of Down syndrome Lady Cockburn and her children, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The child at the back of Lady Cockburn has some features consistent with DS. The oldest archaeological data which we have knowledge about Down syndrome is the finding of a seventh century Saxon skull, which were described structural abnormalities compatible with a male with the syndrome. Cinergy Health There are also references to certain sculptures Olmec culture could represent people affected by SD.The tempera on wood painting “Madonna and Child” by Andrea Mantegna (1430-1506) seems to represent a child with features reminiscent of those of the trisomy, and the table of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1773) “Portrait Lady Cockburn and her three children “, which is one of the children with typical facial features of DS. The first documented report of a child with DS is attributed to Etienne Esquirol in 1838, denominated in their beginning “cretinism” or “idiocy furfuraceous. P. Martin Duncan in 1886 described verbatim “a girl with a small head, rounded, slanted eyes, which left barely hanging tongue and uttered a few words.” In that year the English physician John Langdon Down was working as director of the Asylum for Mentally Retarded Earlswood, Surrey, performing a thorough study of many of his patients.With these data published in the London Hospital Reports an article entitled: “Observations on an ethnic group of mentally retarded” which detailed the physical characteristics of a group of patients who had many similarities, including in its capacity for imitation and its meaning of mood. The first descriptions of the syndrome originally ascribed to various diseases of the parents, establishing its pathogenesis based on a regression or reversion to a phylogenetic been more “primitive”. John Langdon Haydon Down Some more curious theory indicated the potential for TB to “break the species barrier,” so that Western parents could have children “Eastern” (or “Mongoloid”, as Dr. Down itself, by facial similarities of these individuals with the nomad races of the center of Mongolia). After a number of scientific communications, finally in 1909 GEShuttleworth first mentioned advanced maternal age as a risk factor for the onset of the syndrome. On the way to the current name the syndrome was renamed the “idiocy Kalmyk ” or “unfinished children. Regarding its etiology, is in 1932 when referring to a first abnormal distribution of chromosomal material as a possible cause of SD. In 1956 Levan Tjio and demonstrate the existence of 46 chromosomes in humans and soon after, in 1959 Lejeune and Turpin Gautrier show that people with DS carry 47 chromosomes. (The latter was demonstrated simultaneously the English Pat Jacobs, often forgotten in the historical reviews). In 1961 a group of scientists (which included a relative of Dr.Down) proposed the name change to the current “Down Syndrome” because the term “Mongolian” or “mongolism” could be offensive. In 1965 the WHO (World Health Organization) effect to the change in nomenclature following a formal request from the delegate from Mongolia. Lejeune himself proposed the alternative name of “trisomy 21” when, shortly after its discovery, it was found in what a pair of chromosomes was the excess of genetic material.