Harry Angelman

Harry Angelman (1915 to 1996) was a British consultant paediatrician who first identified the condition later named Angelman syndrome. He was born in Birkenhead and qualified in Liverpool in 1938. He was devoted to Italy, its language and its art. He saw three unrelated children who shared severe intellectual disability, lack of speech, motor disorders and a happy demeanour, and hesitated over whether to publish. A Renaissance painting by Giovanni Francesco Caroto of a laughing boy with a puppet suggested the name for what he called puppet children in his 1965 paper. The paper was not at first seen as important, but later cases of similar children led to the condition being renamed Angelman syndrome. He travelled to talk about the discovery, and U.S. President Bill Clinton mentioned his work as important. He died of a colon tumour.