David Weyhe Smith

Who was David Weyhe Smith?

David Weyhe Smith was an American pediatrician and dysmorphologist.

Smith was born in Oakland, California. He gained his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and worked with Lawson Wilkins in the field of pediatric endocrinology. He began working at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in 1958, and became a professor of pediatrics there. From 1966 until the end of his career he was at the University of Washington, Seattle. His work in dysmorphology was recognized worldwide.

His book Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation is considered a key work in the field. He also published five other monographs as well as nearly 200 papers. The condition known as Aase Smith syndrome is named for Smith and colleague Jon Morton Aase. Smith also co-discovered and lent his name to such conditions as Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, Marshall-Smith syndrome and others.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was named in 1973 by Smith and Dr. Kenneth Lyons Jones, who identified a pattern of "craniofacial, limb, and cardiovascular defects associated with prenatal onset growth deficiency and developmental delay" in eight unrelated children of three ethnic groups, all born to mothers who were alcoholics.