Marfan's is an autosomal dominant condition meaning that if one of your parents has it, you have a 50-50 chance of having it too. Not any odds that I fancy. Marfan is in fact a disorder of the connective tissue, but it has a wide range of symptoms, with severities ranging from mild to severe. The most common effect of Marfan's Syndrome is myopia while the most serious can be cardiovascular malformations. People with this disease tend to be loose jointed with long, thin arms and legs. So did Daddy Long Legs have Marfan's Syndrome? The short answer is no. The long answer includes: because a) he was a fictional character and b) I doubt Jean Webster had ever heard of Marfan's. I know I hadn't until one of the characters on a TV show happened to have it. I of course wanted to know whether the script writers had got their details right (turns out they had) and you all got to hear about Marfan's. I know TV is supposed to make us stupid but some of the details that they get right are truly fascinating, especially in the police procedurals. So, I also know, what not to do when planning to commit murder :) What random trivia\ weird diseases have you learnt about from TV shows?
Signing out: Bond. Jamila Bond. Kicking ass in Pakistani style since 1989. There may also have been a few spy shows in there...
PS: spell check seems to think that severities is not a real word. I disagree. And even if it isn't, it ought to be anyway.
Nimra