Ateliosis or ateleiosis is a
diagnosis
Diagnosis is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines, with variations in the use of logic, analytics, and experience, to determine " cause and effect". In systems engin ...
used in the early 1900s to describe patients with short stature. Ateliosis literally means "failure to achieve perfection", and was used to describe proportional
dwarfism. The term was popularised by
Hastings Gilford, who used the term to refer to forms of dwarfism associated with and without
sexual maturation
Sexual maturity is the capability of an organism to reproduce. In humans it might be considered synonymous with adulthood, but here puberty is the name for the process of biological sexual maturation, while adulthood is based on cultural definiti ...
.
Ateliosis was reported as early as 1904 in relation to
progeria
Progeria is a specific type of progeroid syndrome, also known as Hutchinson–Gilford syndrome. A single gene mutation is responsible for progeria. The gene, known as lamin A (LMNA), makes a protein necessary for holding the Nucleus of the cell ...
, a syndrome of premature aging.
According to the
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it is "dwarfism associated with anterior pituitary deficiencies and marked by essentially normal
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...
and proportions though often retarded
sexual development
Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy. I ...
". The physical characteristics include: normal facial features, childlike high pitched voice, proportioned body, and abnormal
genitalia
A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, a ...
. Their
mental development
The development of the nervous system, or neural development (neurodevelopment), refers to the processes that generate, shape, and reshape the nervous system of animals, from the earliest stages of embryonic development to adulthood. The fiel ...
is normal to slightly delayed. Hastings Gilford originated the term to describe patients with "continuous youth".
[Worster-Drought C.,Archer BW. "A Case of Ateleiosis (Lorain’s Disease)." Proc R Soc Med 20.6 (1927): 771-773. PubMed. Web. 8 Mar. 2010.]
References
Animal developmental biology
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