Painting by numbers

Graves’ disease, manifesting as goitre, hyperthyroidism, and exophthalmos is eponymously named after the nineteenth century Dublin physician Dr Robert Graves, who was one of the first to describe it. It occasionally presents to dermatologists as pretibial myxoedema.

Graves was a rather remarkable doctor. After qualification he toured Europe and on the way met, and became great friends with, the artist Turner. They travelled extensively together, and it was only after they had parted that they discovered that neither of them knew the other’s name!