How did Marfan syndrome get its name?

It wasn't just that Evan was really tall for his age — 6 feet and 1 inch, to be exact — but his arms, legs, and fingers were very long and thin and his chest had kind of a ... Thanks to new research and treatments, people with Marfan syndrome who are diagnosed early and get good medical care can live long, happy lives. read more

Marfan's patient, a five-year-old girl, was thin, and had long limbs and abnormally long fingers and toes. Marfan compared the girl's long digits to the legs of a spider, which gave the condition its medical name, arachnodacryly, from the Greek word for "spider," arachne . read more

As is typical in medicine, it was named after the physician who first noted it - dictionary of medical eponyms. read more

In Marfan syndrome, the health of the eye can be affected in many ways, but the principal change is partial lens dislocation, where the lens is shifted out of its normal position. This occurs because of weakness in the ciliary zonules, the connective tissue strands which suspend the lens within the eye. read more