George Papanicolaou: The Greek Physician Who Saved Countless Lives

Dr. George Papanicolaou, the inventor of the Pap smear. Public Domain

Dr. George Papanicolaou (13 May 1883 – 19 February 1962) was the Greek pioneer successful cytopathology and aboriginal crab detection, who invented the “Papanicolaou Test,” besides known arsenic the “Pap smear.”

Few scientists tin assertion arsenic large an interaction arsenic Papanicolaou. It is estimated that Pap smear screening has prevented betwixt 105,000 and 492,000 cases of cervical crab successful the US implicit the past 3 decades.

Who Was George Papanicolaou?

Born successful 1883 successful the municipality of Kymi connected Euboea (Evia) Island, Papanicolaou was destined to go 1 of the astir important figures successful medicine of the twentieth century.

Papanicolaou grew up and studied successful Greece and continued his acquisition successful Germany. His archetypal studies astatine the University of Athens were wholly irrelevant to medicine since helium graduated with specializations successful literature, philosophy, languages and music. However, pursuing his father’s insistence, helium became a doctor.

After getting joined and serving successful the subject aesculapian corps again successful the First Balkan War, Papanicolaou emigrated to the U.S. successful 1913, mounting retired connected overmuch the aforesaid hard roadworthy the thad been antecedently trodden by galore Greek immigrants.

Papanicolaou’s revolutionary work

In 1928, Papanicolaou developed a method to instrumentality samples from the vaginal tract and analyse them nether a microscope. The cellular changes caused by crab were intelligibly disposable utilizing his technique, giving Papanicolaou, arsenic helium aboriginal said, ”one of the top thrills I ever experienced during my technological career.”

However, owed to absorption from the technological constitution of the day, it was not until a 1941 insubstantial written with gynaecologist Herbert Traut that Papanicolaou’s findings began to beryllium much wide accepted. Until then, his enactment was not adjacent known to the broader satellite of medicine.

Fortunately, aboriginal on, his precocious enactment developed into the fully-fledged subject of cytopathology, which studies illness astatine the cellular level.

This Greek immigrant, who began his humble beingness successful a tiny municipality of Euboea, was yet to go the recipient of galore awards, including the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, bestowed by the American Public Health Association successful 1950 and the Medal of Honor, fixed to him by the American Cancer Society successful 1952.

The Drachma banknote of George Papanicolaou circulated until 2002.

Papanicolaou honored by Greece and the US

His motherland, Greece, honored him by putting his visage connected the country’s highest-value banknote, the 10,000 drachma note, until 2002, erstwhile Greece did distant with its ain coinage and adopted the Euro.

Even the United States honored this pioneering scientist, with the country’s Postal Service issuing a 13-cent stamp for aboriginal crab detection successful 1978.

One twelvemonth earlier his death, Papanicolaou moved from his beloved New York to Miami.

After arriving there, the famed doc established the Papanicolaou Cancer Research Institute.

The Institute, arsenic a standalone carnal laboratory, nary longer exists successful the mode it was primitively established successful the 1960s. Instead, its bequest and ngo person been afloat absorbed into the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center astatine the University of Miami.

Related: New US Film Delves Into Papanicolaou’s Cancer Breakthrough