Arthur Biedl

Arthur Biedl (1869-1933) was an Hungarian pathologist who was trained at the University of Vienna and practised medicine in Vienna and Prague.

In 1910, Biedl published an important textbook on endocrinology called "Internal Secretions" which was a comprehensive study on glands and their secretions.

Biedl believed that obesity was due to changes in the pituitary gland. In 1922, he described his studies of two sisters who had retinitis pigmentosa, polydactyly, hypogonadism as well as obesity. Two years earlier Georges Bardet (1885-1970) at the University of Paris described the same symptoms in two sisters unrelated to Biedl's findings. This syndrome is now called the Bardet-Biedl syndrome after the two men.

A similar disease was originally named the Laurence-Moon-Bardet-Biedl syndrome, together with two English physicians, John Zachariah Laurence (1829–1870) and Robert Charles Moon (1845–1914). Today this disease has been shortened to become the Laurence-Moon syndrome, while the Bardet-Biedl syndrome is recognized as a separate entity.

External Source:
* [http://otasia.advanstar.com/otasia/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=379959 Biedl, Bardet, Laurence & Moon; Research on retinitis pigmentosa]