Willem Karel Dicke (15 February 1905,

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...

– 27 April 1962,

De Bilt De Bilt () is a municipality and town in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands. It had a population of in . De Bilt houses the headquarters of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). It is the ancestral home and namesake for the pro ...

) was a Dutch paediatrician who was the first to develop the

gluten-free diet A gluten-free diet (GFD) is a nutritional plan that strictly excludes gluten, which is a mixture of proteins found in wheat (and all of its species and hybrids, such as spelt, kamut, and triticale), as well as barley, rye, and oats. The inclus ...

and to show that in

coeliac disease Coeliac disease (British English) or celiac disease (American English) is a long-term autoimmune disorder, primarily affecting the small intestine, where individuals develop intolerance to gluten, present in foods such as wheat, rye and barle ...

some types of flour cause relapse.

Life

From 1922 until 1929 Willem Dicke studied medicine in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

, then specialized in paediatry in in Hague from 1929 until 1933. In 1936, being just 31 years old, he became the medical director of the hospital. In 1957 he was appointed a professor of

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

and became a medical director of . Dicke died in 1962 of

cerebrovascular disease Cerebrovascular disease includes a variety of medical conditions that affect the blood vessels of the brain and the cerebral circulation. Arteries supplying oxygen and nutrients to the brain are often damaged or deformed in these disorders. The ...

. He was considered for the 1962

Nobel Prize in Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according ...

, but his death that year made the discussion moot as the prizes are not awarded posthumously. The Netherlands' Society of Gastroenterology had instituted in his honor a decoration to reward the pioneering research in the field, and Willem was the first to receive the gold '' Dicke Medal''.

The Dutch famine of 1944–1945

The discovery of the cause of

may also be partly attributed to the Dutch famine. With wheat in very short supply there was an improvement at a children's ward of coeliac patients. Stories tell of the first precious supplies of bread being given specifically to the (no longer) sick children, prompting an immediate relapse. Thus in the 1940s Willem Dicke was able to corroborate his previously researched hypothesis that wheat intake was aggravating coeliac disease. In the 1940s and 1950s he went on to develop the gluten-free diet, changing the way of treatment and destinies of children sick with coeliac disease.

Works

*Dicke, WK (1950), ''Coeliakie: een onderzoek naar de nadelige invloed van sommige graansoorten op de lijder aan coeliakie'' (PhD thesis), Utrecht, NL:

University of Utrecht Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

References

1905 births 1962 deaths Dutch pediatricians Dutch gastroenterologists People from Dordrecht Leiden University alumni 20th-century Dutch physicians Dutch healthcare managers {{Netherlands-med-bio-stub