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Oskar Kobyliński

Oskar Kobyliński (1856-1926)

Carl Oscar Alexander von Kobyliński (1856 – 1926) was a Polish-Baltic German general practitioner.


Biography

  • Born 26 August 1856 in Lubbenhof (today Trikata in Latvia)
  • 1877 – Graduated from German-language gymnasium in Pärnu in Estonia
  • 1883 – Graduate in Medicine from the University in Dorpat, Russia. He received the medical diploma but did not present a doctoral dissertation and was not presented with a doctoral title.
  • 1884 – Returned to Kempen and set up medical practice with his physician father
  • Died 2 April 1926 of a heart attack in Rome

Medical Eponyms

Noonan syndrome (1893)

Kobyliński was a medical student at Dorpat when he described the case of the 20-year-old Leisar Eischikmann admitted for investigation of a fever of unknown origin. Kobyliński published the case in Archiv für Anthropologie and defined in great detail an anatomical abnormality of webbing of the neck. He also drew attention to the patient’s low hairline; that at the level of the nasal bridge the hairline connected with the eyebrows; and bilateral deformation of the external ear of the patient.

Am 18. Januar a. c. stellte sich der zwanzigjährige Ebräer Leisar Eischikmann mit der Bitte um Aufnahme in der hiesigen therapeutischen Klinik vor…Doch abgesehen von der Krankheit bot Patient eine sonderbare angeborene Anomalie im Bau des Halses dar…Patient zeigt auf beiden Seiten des Halses zwischen Proc. mastoideus und Acromion eine flughautähnliche Hautfalte, welche nach oben in einen leichten concaven Bogen und scharf markirten Rand auslaufend, in die Haut der Brust und des Kückens übergeht….Es scheint der Knochen – und Muskelbau als ein vollkommen normaler angenommen werden zu können.

Kobyliński 1883

On January 18 a. c. introduced the twenty year old Ebräer Leisar Eischikmann with the request for admission to the local therapeutic clinic…apart from the disease, the patient presented a strange congenital anomaly in the construction of the neck. Patient shows on both sides of the neck from the mastoid process to the acromion, a skin-like skin fold, which runs upwards into a slight concave arch and sharply marked edge, into the skin of the chest and the back…The bone and muscle structure seems to be completely normal.

Kobyliński 1883

Kobyliński 1883 first description of Noonan Syndrome
First description of Noonan Syndrome. Kobyliński 1883: Taf XIV

Das hohe Interesse, welches unser Fall in uns wachgerufen, liegt einmal darin, dass wir nach ähnlichen Erscheinungen am Halse vergeblich in der Literatur nachgesucht haben und nicht einmal Andeutungen über Vorkommnisse diesesgleichen am Menschen gefunden haben; das andere Mal, indem der Chimpanse – der uns leider nur in Abbildungen zugänglich geworden ist – etwas diesem Entsprechendes aufzuweisen scheint, was uns diese unsere räthselhafte Missbildung im Sinne Darwin ’s, als einen Fall von Atavismus, zu erklären im Staude sein würde.

Kobyliński 1883

The high level of interest that our case aroused in us is that we have searched in vain for similar phenomena in the neck and have not even found any hints about what happened in humans; the other time, when the chimpanzee – which unfortunately only became available to us in pictures – seems to have something corresponding to it, which would explain to us this puzzling malformation in the sense of Darwin’s, as a case of atavism.

Kobyliński 1883

Major Publications


References


BA MA (Oxon) MBChB (Edin) FACEM FFSEM. Emergency physician, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.  Passion for rugby; medical history; medical education; and asynchronous learning #FOAMed evangelist. Co-founder and CTO of Life in the Fast lane | Eponyms | Books | Twitter |

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