described in 1883 by kobylinski jacqueline noonan was practicing as a pediatric cardiologist at the university of iowa when she noticed that children with a rare type of heart defect, valvular pulmonary stenosis, often had a characteristic physical appearance, with short stature, webbed neck, wide spaced eyes, and low-set ears. both boys and girls were affected. these characteristics were sometimes seen running in families but were not associated with gross chromosomal abnormalities. she studied 833 people with noonan syndrome at the congenital heart disease clinic, looking for other congenital abnormalities, and, in 1963, presented a paper: "associated non-cardiac malformations in children with congenital heart disease". this described nine children who in addition to congenital heart disease had characteristic facial features, chest deformities and short stature. dr. john opitz, a former student of noonan's, first began to call the condition "noonan syndrome" when he saw children who looked like those whom dr. noonan had described. noonan produced a paper titled "hypertelorism with turner phenotype" in 1968 where she studied 19 patients who displayed symptoms indicative of noonan's syndrome. in 1971, at the symposium of cardiovascular defects, the name "noonan syndrome" became officially recognized.