Antoni Leśniowski (January 28, 1867 – April 4, 1940) was a
Polish surgeon, credited with publishing what may have been the earliest reports of the condition which later became known as
Crohn's disease
Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that may affect any segment of the gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms often include abdominal pain, diarrhea (which may be bloody if inflammation is severe), fever, abdominal distension, ...
.
He graduated in medicine from the
University of Warsaw in 1890, and studied further in
Berlin. From 1892 to 1912 he worked as a surgeon at the Infant Jesus Hospital in
Warsaw, specialising in
urology. Despite this, his most notable reports were on several cases of
inflammatory bowel disease
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a group of inflammatory conditions of the colon and small intestine, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis being the principal types. Crohn's disease affects the small intestine and large intestine, as well ...
. On May 10, 1903, ''Medycyna'', a weekly medical newspaper, published an article in which he described several cases of intestinal disease, concluding in at least one case: "we suspected a chronic inflammatory process in the wall of the gut."
He wrote three further articles describing cases for the ''Pamiętnik Towarzystwa Lekarskiego Warszawskiego'' (''Annals of the Warsaw Medical Association'') between 1903 and 1905, consistent with what is now known as Crohn's disease, although the evidence is not conclusive.
In one of these articles, in 1904, he reported a meeting of the Warsaw Medical Society, at which he presented a surgical specimen of an inflammatory tumour of the terminal ileum with a fistula to the ascending colon.
The disease was described again in 1932 by
US American gastroenterologists Burrill Bernard Crohn
Burrill Bernard Crohn (June 13, 1884 – July 29, 1983) was an American gastroenterologist who made the first major advance to identify the disease that now bears his name. Although the description of Crohn's disease is by far his most famous ac ...
,
Leon Ginzburg and Gordon D. Oppenheimer, and since that time, due to the precedence of the name ''Crohn'' in the alphabet, it has been known in the worldwide literature as ''Crohn’s disease''. Only in Poland is it known as ''Leśniowski-Crohn’s disease''.
During 1912–1914, he was the director of
Warsaw’s St Anthony Hospital, then until 1919, was the head of surgery department in the Holy Ghost Hospital in Warsaw. During 1919–1936, he was a professor of surgery at the
University of Warsaw. He also wrote a textbook on general surgery.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lesniowski
1867 births
1940 deaths
Surgeons from the Russian Empire
Polish surgeons
Polish urologists