Rothmund's Syndrome—Thomson's Syndrome

Abstract

In 1868, in the ophthalmologic clinic at Munich, August Rothmund¹saw a 5-year-old boy with a cataract in one eye, and a peculiar marmorization of the skin. Several weeks later a cataract developed in the other eye. Two other children living in the same isolated area in the Bavarian Alps were seen with cataracts and the peculiar ``degeneration'' of the skin. Because the parents assured him there were other children in the area similarly afflicted Rothmund visited the towns of Ritzelndorf, Hircheck, and Mittelberg in Kleine Walsertal, a dead-end valley in the mountains where these people lived. Most of the families in this valley were