In memory of Professor Maria Dąmbska

On November 11^th, 2005 after a long illness Maria Dąmbska MD, PhD, an outstanding neuropathologist, an honest, honorable, and people friendly person passed away.
Professor Maria Dąmbska was born on 4^th of December, 1925 in Lvov. She was brought up in a family estate in Rudna Wielka near Rzeszów. She received her secondary-school certificate in conspiracy. She graduated from the Medical Academy in Poznań and on May 24^th, 1952 she received her physician’s degree. From the very beginning her interests were in psychiatry and internal medicine. After graduation she moved to Gdansk, to her family. She worked in Mental Health and Internal Medicine Clinics. Simultaneously she was employed in the clinic for alcohol prevention in Gdynia. That was the time of the so called “work orders”. On several occasions and in order to ensure that her colleagues from Mental Health Counseling were not sent to far away destinations to assume positions under the “work orders” regime, she accompanied me in visiting the Ministry of Health in Warsaw where she fought their case successfully.
Professor Maria Dąmbska was sent to Dziekanka near Gniezno for the period of 3 years. The unit under her management was well recognized by Professor Anatol Dowżenko who visited it as a consultant. In 1954 she took a 4-month course on Neurology Basics run by assistant – Professor Ewa Osetowska who had earlier returned from her training in the class of Professor Ludo van Bogaert from Bunge. Professor Osetowska was a great enthusiast of neuropathology which she studied there, and she inspired a group of young neurologists, including Maria Dąmbska, Henryk Wisniewski, Mirosław Mossakowski, Irmina Zelman, Lech Iwanowski, Tadeusz Majdecki, Halina Kroh and myself to focus on this science.
After completion of the course Maria Dąmbska took a job in a newly established Laboratory of the Nervous System Histopathology of the Polish Academy of Sciences which was initially a part of the Warsaw Clinic of Neurology of the Medical Academy in Warsaw. The clinic was strongly supported by professor Adam Opalski who made a name for himself in neuropathology by identifying a particular cell type in hepatic encephalopathy. In 1955 and then in 1959 she completed her 1^st and 2^nd degree of specialization in neurology. In 1955 she received her degree in neuropathology.
In 1955 she joined the Medical...


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