Like many diseases, Crohns disease is named after the man who discovered this particular illness. It was a particularly devastating form of inflammatory bowel disease, and one that had not been seen before. In 1932, Burrill Bernard Crohn published a paper with two of his colleagues, Dr. Gordon Oppenheimer and Dr. Leon Ginzburg, outlining the symptoms of the sickness and what they had discovered through the research of more than 14 cases.
Crohns, as it became known, was essentially a condition affecting primarily the large intestine. Patients afflicted with this disease would experience inflammation in the colon, rectum, stomach, and sometimes even the mouth. This swelling would usually be rather deep and difficult to treat, even with antibiotics. The possibility of the surgical removal of the colon offers some hope of relief but there is a strong chance that the symptoms will reoccur since the inflammation is not restricted to the larger intestine.
How Crohn became famous was mostly due to his last name starting with a “C.” When the findings made by him and his colleagues were published, they were done so in a paper called, “Regional Iletis: A New Clinical Entity.” This was the first time that the description of this condition had been published in a popular medical journal, and because his name came first alphabetically, this was how the disease was eventually named.
Crohn’s discovery resulted in a great amount of fame that allowed him to eventually become chief of the gastroenterology department at Mount Sinai Hospital where he was able to treat patients from all around the world and conduct further research into the causes of the disease that bears his name. When he retired, he moved to Connecticut and cut off a lot of communication with the outside work, preferring Mount Sinai Hospital to deal with the continuing interest in his name and his disease.
While Crohn was considered to be hugely successful in his field, he was frustrated by an inability to prove a theory he had relating to the cause of the disease that bears his name. He tried to make a link between a pathogen that is also found in cattle who suffer from Johne’s disease. Technology at the time was not sophisticated enough for him to prove his theories, but in recent years there has been greater evidence supporting his initial theories, meaning that his work was on the right track all along.
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