Jenő Sándor Pólya, german: Eugen Alexander Pólya, hu, Pólya (Pollák) Jenő Sándor (April 30, 1876 – 1944) was a Hungarian surgeon who was a native of

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

. He was the brother of

George Pólya George Pólya (; hu, Pólya György, ; December 13, 1887 – September 7, 1985) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was a professor of mathematics from 1914 to 1940 at ETH Zürich and from 1940 to 1953 at Stanford University. He made fundamenta ...

(1887–1985), who was a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. He studied in Budapest, and in 1898 earned his medical doctorate. In 1909 he was habilitated for surgical

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...

at Budapest, attaining the title of professor of 1914. Reportedly, he was murdered by the Nazis during the

Siege of Budapest The Siege of Budapest or Battle of Budapest was the 50-day-long encirclement by Soviet and Romanian forces of the Hungarian capital of Budapest, near the end of World War II. Part of the broader Budapest Offensive, the siege began when Budape ...

, although his body was never recovered. Jenö Pólya is remembered for a surgical procedure known as the " Reichel-Pólya operation", a type of posterior

gastroenterostomy A gastroenterostomy is the surgical creation of a connection between the stomach and the jejunum. The operation can sometimes be performed at the same time as a partial gastrectomy (the removal of part of the stomach). Gastroenterostomy was in the ...

that is a modification of the Billroth II operation. The operation is named in conjunction with German surgeon

Friedrich Paul Reichel Friedrich Paul Reichel (born 23 December 1858 in Breslau, died December 1934) was a German surgeon. 1881 - 1885: Assistant (Breslau - Surgery - Fischer) 1882: Doctor of medicine 1885 - 1888: Assistant (Berlin - Gynecology - Karl Ludwig Ernst ...

(1858–1934). Between

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, he was visited in Budapest by several American surgeons who came to observe his surgical technique. Consequently, in 1939, Pólya was elected an honorary member of the American College of Surgeons.

References

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''Jenö (Eugen) Alexander Pólya''
@

Who Named It ''Whonamedit?'' is an online English-language dictionary of medical eponyms and the people associated with their identification. Though it is a dictionary, many eponyms and persons are presented in extensive articles with comprehensive bibliograp ...

1876 births 1944 deaths 20th-century Hungarian physicians Hungarian surgeons Hungarian people of Jewish descent Physicians from Budapest 20th-century surgeons {{Hungary-med-bio-stub