Antoni Leśniowski (January 28, 1867 – April 4, 1940) was a Polish

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

, 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, fever, abdominal distension, and weight loss. Complications outside of the ...

. He graduated in medicine from the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...

in 1890, and studied further in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. From 1892 to 1912 he worked as a surgeon at the Infant Jesus Hospital in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, specialising in

urology Urology (from Ancient Greek, Greek wikt:οὖρον, οὖρον ''ouron'' "urine" and ''wiktionary:-logia, -logia'' "study of"), also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of t ...

. 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, with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (UC) being the principal types. Crohn's disease affects the small intestine and large intestine ...

. 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 Gastroenterology (from the Greek gastḗr- "belly", -énteron "intestine", and -logía "study of") is the branch of medicine focused on the digestive system and its disorders. The digestive system consists of the gastrointestinal tract, sometime ...

Burrill Bernard Crohn, 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 it is known as ''Leśniowski-Crohn’s disease''. During 1912–1914, he was the director of

’s St Anthony Hospital, then until 1919, was the head of surgery department in the Holy Spirit Hospital in Warsaw. During 1919–1936, he was a professor of surgery at the

. He also wrote a textbook on general surgery.

References

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lesniowski 1867 births 1940 deaths Surgeons from the Russian Empire Polish urologists People from Congress Poland Academic staff of the University of Warsaw Crohn's disease 19th-century surgeons 20th-century Polish surgeons 19th-century Polish physicians 20th-century Polish physicians