title: [Edward Wilhelm Drescher--the founder of pediatric surgery in West Pomerania].
abstract: Professor Edward Wilhelm Drescher--an eminent Polish pediatric surgeon and pioneer of this specialization in West Pomerania--was born in 1912 in Biłgoraj. His young years he spent in his parents familial town Kalisz, where he attended a very famous college--State Humanistic Grammar-School. In 1937 he graduated from Faculty of Medicine at the Warsaw University. Next year he started his career as a surgeon in the Surgery at Orthopedic Ward of Pediatric Clinic in Warsaw, which was directed by prof. Jan Kossakowski--excellent pediatric surgeon and artist. During the September Campaign he took part in the battle of Bzura and in the defense of Polish capital as the physician in the 25th Regiment of Artillery. In 1940 he joined Polish underground army--AK. In 1944, when the Warsaw Uprising broke out, he was the Commander of the insurgent hospital--Poznańska 11. It was a very well arranged and headed hospital, which admitted about eight hundred wounded soldiers and civilians. After the war for two years he lived in Sopot, where he organized and directed the Surgery Hospital and the Town Outpatients' Department. In 1947 he moved to Szczecin, where he arranged the first ward of pediatric surgery in West Pomerania (in Polish Red Cross hospital). Ten years later he was nominated the head of the Clinic of Pediatric Surgery in the Pomeranian Medical Academy in Szczecin. For many years Prof. Drescher was provincial and regional consultant. He helped to organize a few pediatric surgery wards in Pomerania (Koszalin, Gorzów Wlkp., Słupsk). He died in 1977 in Warsaw. Prof. Drescher published almost 80 scientific papers including two medical books. Traumatology of children and the newborn surgery became his principal area of interest. He was the author of Code of the Ethical and Moral Procedure of the Polish Medical Society. For almost twenty years he was co-author the Annales of Pomeranian Medical Academy. He was a co-founder, next was a president of the Polish Association of Pediatric Surgeons and next its honorary Member. Professor Drescher was well-known as a man of great humanist, an excellent teacher and surgeon with rich personality, getting easily into contact with every man, especially children.
authors.affiliation: Katedry i Kliniki Chirurgii Dzieciecej, Pomorskiej Akademii Medycznej w Szczecinie.
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Pacanowski
mesh_terms: D013502:General Surgery; D049673:History, 20th Century; D008887:Military Medicine; D009985:Orthopedics; D010372:Pediatrics; D011044:Poland; D014857:Warfare