In memoriam: Professor Janina Rafałowska

With great sadness, we share the news that Professor Janina Rafałowska passed away on June 30th 2017 at the age of 88. She was a pioneer of neuropathology in Poland, with impressive clinical and scientific achievements. She was an excellent clinician in neurology, an outstanding neuropathologist, a prominent scientist, a teacher of several generations of medical students, and a true friend to many of us. Her death is a loss to the entire community of neurologists and neuropathologists. For many years she was an active member of the Editorial Board of Folia Neuropathologica, in which she reviewed the submitted articles on clinical and experimental neuropathology.
We will miss her professional passion and her wisdom, but first of all her warmth, goodness of her heart, and humanity.

Editorial Board

Memory

Professor Janina Rafałowska was born on April 21st 1929 in Warsaw. She graduated from the Medical Academy in Warsaw in 1954 and entered the Department of Neurology in the Medical Academy of Warsaw as a volunteer, then as a scholarship holder for the Ministry of Health. Next, she became an assistant, assistant professor, associate professor, and finally professor in the Department of Neurology. In 1956, after passing the specialisation exams, she received the title of neurologist, in 1960 specialist neurologist, and in 1977 specialist neuropathologist. In her early career, Professor Rafałowska worked mainly as a clinician in the Neurological Department, and then in the Stroke Department of the Neurological Clinic. At that time, she was primarily interested in clinical problems, which was reflected in the 21 scientific articles she published in 1955-1970. In 1962 Professor Rafałowska started to work in the Laboratory of Morphology of the Central Nervous System, founded by the excellent neuropathologists Professors Orzechowski and Opalski in 1928. The laboratory was then located in the basements of the Clinic, in the so-called “catacombs”, where the shelves were lined with jars containing valuable formalin material – brains – in the narrow corridors. The quite dark atmosphere of this place was filled with cigarette smoke, the smell of coffee mixed with the smell of formalin, and the sound of scientific discussions conducted by the Professor. In 1970 Professor Rafałowska became the head of the Laboratory, which was renamed the Laboratory of Neuropathology. As a neuropathologist, she was interested predominantly in vascular...


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