Dictionary of Medical Syndromes.

Abstract

This must be the year of the eponymist—two books in recent months is a rare bonanza. Jablonski's Illustrated Dictionary of Eponymic Syndromes and Diseases and Their Synonyms (Arch Intern Med , 126 :334, 1970) was a delight. Now Magalini's excellent Dictionary of Medical Syndromes appears, and it enchants all the way from Aase-Smith syndrome (which beats Jablonski's Abadie's Sign), to Zoon's (here, Jablonski tops Magalini by ten syndromes ending in Zwahlen's). However, Magalini starts off curiously. He wins the hearts and minds of eponymic aficionados by his spirited defense of eponyms. But in the next breath he commits the Unpardonable Sin of eponymology—he misspells a name! He advises the reader to check a map to locate Borholm Island (sic)—which we would never find since it is misspelled (Bornholm Island is on the ferry route between Danzig and Malmo). So I flipped to the index to see if the error had been