Petrus Johannes Waardenburg (3 June 1886 – 23 September 1979) was a Dutch ophthalmologist, geneticist, and pioneer in the application of genetics to ophthalmology.
[1] Waardenburg studied medicine at the Utrecht University from 1904–11, and then trained in ophthalmology before receiving an MD for a dissertation on the hereditary basis of the physiological and pathological characteristics of the eye in 1913.
[2] Waardenburg syndrome is a rare genetic disorder most often characterized by varying degrees of deafness, minor defects in structures arising from the neural crest, and pigmentation anomalies.
[2] In 1913, Jan van der Hoeve observed and described a lateral position of the lacrimal points and shortened eyelid slit in identical deaf mute twins.
[4] In August 1947 David Klein presented a deaf mute child, who was 10 years of age, and had partial albinism of the hair and body, blue hypoplastic rides, blepharophimosis, and malformation of the arms, to the Swiss Society of Genetics, and gave a full report of his findings in 1950.