LETTER TO THE EDITOR
National eponyms in medicine
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Chair and Department of Hygiene, Medical University of Lublin, Poland
Submission date: 2020-01-11
Acceptance date: 2020-01-31
Online publication date: 2020-02-28
Publication date: 2020-02-28
Reumatologia 2020;58(1):56-57
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
An eponym is a person, place or thing after whom or after which something is named. In the past eponyms used to be commonly used in medical vocabulary. Rheumatologists are surely familiar with ‘Lyme disease’ (borreliosis).
Combing through the Internet I couldn’t find any world-famous medical eponyms that Poles could be proud of. The only ones with ‘Poland’ or ‘Polish’ words are: ’plica polonica’ and ‘Poland syndrome’.
In the 21st century eponyms are rarely used because of the global importance of evidence based medicine and multi-centre cohort studies and clinical trials.
Who in Poland deserves to go to the annals of medicine? Undoubtedly professor Rudolf Weigl. He had 75 nominations for Nobel without being awarded the prize. Can we be proud only of our poets and novelists?
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