Crohn And Disease

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The man Burrill Bernard Crohn is known for his work in the field of gastroenterology, specifically for identifying the disease that has become his namesake; Crohns disease. He worked in New York at the Mount Sinai Hospital with two colleagues, Dr. Gordon Oppenheimer and Dr. Leon Ginzburg, and together the three published their findings on this new disease in the field of gastroenterology.

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.

Crohn may have passed on, but his theories and findings continue to be used and looked at when researching IBS. Before he died, he had been frustrated by not being able to prove a connection between his disease and a similar one that affected cattle, called Johne’s disease. He would surely be happy to know that technology has now shown that there is indeed a similarity between a pathogen found in both illnesses. His dedicated work has led to a number of treatments that have helped people with their bowel problems.

Jeremy Larson is a foremost expert in the acid reflux medication field. His work has been extensively published in various online publications in this area. For more information on the treatment for acid reflux, visit remedyforacidreflux.com.