My interest for unusual conditions in medicine and in psychiatry goes back for a long time. I am one of those sleuths of sorts that enjoy being able to identify a "lazy eye", while watching television, by its technical name, even though — until I drew the attention of others to this ocular phenomenon — no one had noticed. Or when, if I happen to see the discrete eye blinking and slight grimacing, of a new patient, to follow up with questions aimed at diagnosing an unsuspected case of Tourette’s syndrome.
Lincoln has been a much celebrated, and at the same time misunderstood president, for his oratory genius and for his bouts of melancholic humors. But, given his physique, did he also suffer from Marfan’s?
Depressions seemed to accompany, in a variety of ways, this egregious man all of his life. His mother was known as a depressive woman, his wife may have been more than just depressed and he was given to bouts of dark moods.
Many authors have intimated that depressive episodes, often accompany the symptomatic picture of Marfan’s Syndrome.
What is Marfan’s syndrome?
Marfan is a disorder of the connective tissue of hereditary origin caused by an aberrant behavior in the gene FBN1, which is responsible for the production of a protein called fibrillin. This gene resides in chromosome 15 and was established as Marfan’s cause in 1991 thanks to the joint efforts of Johns Hopkins Hospitals and Portland Shriners Hospital. Actually both centers share the distinction of being the leading institutions and world resource for this condition.
The characteristics most common of Marfan’s are:
Arms and legs uncommonly long and thin, arachnodactilia (fingers are also long, giving the hands a spider appearance). Besides these findings, very high stature with marked leanness, myopia, and the tendency for the crystalline lens to become spontaneously dislocated.
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