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In Reply.—
We wish to thank Drs Pinheiro and Freire-Maia for emphasizing some of the points expressed in our original article. As we indicated, the EDs are indeed a heterogeneous group of disorders including many welldefined syndromes. Two of the most distinctive syndromes of ED are processes usually referred to as the hidrotic and anhidrotic forms, although the sweating characteristics represent only one aspect of the respective syndromes. It is well recognized that the anhidrotic form is, in reality, hypohidrotic. As indicated in our article, one cannot, therefore, rely simply on the presence of hidrosis to distinguish the various syndromes.The major point of our article was to stress that another clinical feature, the presence of ophthalmologic defects, can represent an important part of the clinical phenotype of ED but should not be considered as the sole determinant for correctly identifying the genetic type of ED. We hoped to add