Vaughan Pendred

Vaughan-Pendred-1869–1946 LITFL

Vaughan Pendred (1869–1946) was an English general practitioner

Pendred first described the syndrome of bilateral sensorineural hearing loss with goitre (Pendred syndrome) in an Irish family living in Durham in 1896.

Initially describing the condition as ‘Deaf-Mutism and Goitre’ he reported on 2 sisters whose goitre was such that it frequently caused ‘Dyspnoeic attacks’.


Biography
  • Born 10 August 1869, London, attended Westminster School.
  • 1893 – MRCS, LRCP Newcastle-upon-Tyne Medical School
  • 1896 – MB (hons), Durham; FRCS
  • 1901 – MD, Durham
  • Obstetric resident and house surgeon, Guy’s Hospital.
  • General practice first in Buckingham, then Coventry before working in East Sheen (London) between 1913 and 1936.
  • Vice-president of the West London Medico-chirurgical Society
  • 1933-1934 Chairman of the Richmond division of the British Medical Association
  • Died 1 February 1946, Farnham

Medical Eponyms
Pendred syndrome (1896)

Pendred syndrome: autosomal recessive genetic disorder (chromosome 7q31), characterized by congenital sensorineural deafness and goitre.

1896 – Pendred originally reported the syndrome as familial deafness and goitre. He described his observations in two sisters from an Irish family living in Durham.

The first goitre case is the first-born of the family- a spare woman now aged thirty-eight years. She is deaf and can only mumble indistinctly; little care has been taken to educate her and so she is imbecile. The goitre is a large multilobular hard tumour, the greater part on the right side of the neck ; from time to time she suffers from dyspnoeic attacks. (…)The second surviving girl is now aged twenty-eight years, and is the fifth of the family; she is a small, spare, intelligent woman, her expression being in marked contrast to her sister’s. She is not absolutely deaf and can mumble incoherently; her education has been attended to with so much success that she has been “in service.” The tumour is larger than in the other case, but is of the same character ; it has been growing for about fifteen years, and during the last year has caused both dyspnoea and dysphagia, which have become so urgent that I have sent her to-day to Newcastle Infirmary for operation.

Pendred. Lancet 1896


Major Publications

References

Eponym

the person behind the name

BA MA (Oxon) MBChB (Edin) FACEM FFSEM. Emergency physician, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.  Passion for rugby; medical history; medical education; and asynchronous learning #FOAMed evangelist. Co-founder and CTO of Life in the Fast lane | Eponyms | Books | Twitter |

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