Bates [2003] published in this journal a historical review concerning the autopsy on a case of Roberts syndrome, as reported by the French physician Franc ¸ois Bouchard in 1672. He translated the original Latin text, as it appeared in the German journal Miscellanea curiosa sive ephemeridum medico-physicarum Germanicarum Academiae Caesareo-Leopoldinae Naturae Curiosorum [Bouchard, 1672], into English. Without doubt the diagnosis of Roberts syndrome is accurate and this case should be seen as the first report of an autopsy on a child with this syndrome, but unfortunately Bates made some incorrect historical assumptions.
First he presumed that Franc ¸ois Bouchard was the principal author of the case report and, also that Bouchard had performed the autopsy on the child. However, the article by Bouchard was nothing more than a summary of another, more extensive description of the circumstances concerning the origin and autopsy of the malformed infant boy. This latter article was published in French language, and in order to reach a larger public, Bouchard translated the essential details into Latin, without mentioning the original article.
The original article was written by the French surgeon Franc ¸ois Deboze (Bose or De Bose) from Lyon who described the case in 1672 as an appendix to his translation of Johannes Scultetes Armamentarium chirugicum (L'Arcenal de chirurgie de Jean Scultet, . . . ouvrage posthume, . . . renouvel e, . . . divis e en deux parties la premi ere fait voir en 46 tables en taille douce les instrumens . . . la seconde contient 103 observations chirurgicales . . . mis en franc ¸ois par Mre Franc ¸ois Deboze, . . . Avec la description d'un monstre humain expos e a Lyon le 5. de mars 1671), published by Antoine Galien in Lyon in 1672 [Deboze, 1672]. In a more extensive way the case report also appeared in later editions of 'L'Arcenal de Chirurgie' (Deboze, 1712). It is not sure if Bouchard was present in Lyon on the moment of exposition, neither if he participated in, nor was even present during the autopsy. Anyway, Deboze does not mention him in any way in the original article. The original article is, as is the article by Bouchard, illustrated with two engravings depicting the child (Fig. 1).
Secondly, Bates mentioned that the child was ''. . .exposed in a public street at Leiden'' in The Netherlands. In fact, the dead child was exhibited in the Rue de la Lanterne on March 5, 1671, at the centre of the French city of Lyon. This mistake is understandable as How to Cite this Article:
Kompanje EJO. 2009. The earliest description of an autopsy on a case of Roberts syndrome reported in 1672: Some additions.