Professor Andrew Obrzut – the first head of the Pathological Anatomy Department (1896-1910) of the Medical Faculty of Jan Casimir University in Lviv

Department of Pathological Anatomy, Lviv National Medical University named after Danylo Halytsky, Lviv, Ukraine
Andrew Obrzut (Andrzej Obrzut, 2.02.1854 – 29.09.1910) was a professor of medicine in Prague and Lviv, a student of the founder of the Czechoslovak school of pathologists Yaroslav Hlava. He was born on 2.02.1854 in the town of Siolkov, Gribovsky district (Powiat grybowski) into the family of the peasant Joseph.
He graduated from the New Sonch Gymnasium (Nowy S¹cz, Poland). In 1875-1881 he studied at the Medical Faculty of Jagiellonian University and received a diploma of the Doctor of Medicine. In 1881-1883 he worked as a military doctor in Prague and at the same time specialised in pathological anatomy under the Austrian pathologist Professor Chiari (Chiariego). A few years later he published an article in which he presented a number of cases of developmental defects and proposed his own theory of forming hydrocephalus in patients. In 1887, H. Chiari published a classic monograph on the subject. Today it is known of the “Chiari’s malformation” – the lower of the tonsils of the cerebellum to the large occipital hole with compression of the medulla oblongata. In severe cases (Chiari’s malformation) there also exists hydrocephalus, syringomyelia, and meningomyelocele.
In 1883-1887 Andrew Obrzut worked as an assistant to Professor Yaroslav Hlava (Jaroslav Hlava, 7.05.1855 – 31.10.1924) in the Department of Pathological Anatomy at Charl’s University in Prague and in 1887 defended his dissertation for the post-doctorate scientific degree of medicine on the topic “About blood’s participation in the onset of the inflammatory process”. The scholarship, which was obtained during 1889-1891, made it possible for him to get further specialisation under Professor F. Recklinghausen in Strasbourg and Professor A. Cornell in Paris.
In 1891-1896 Andrew Obrzut was a professor in the Department of Pathological Anatomy at the University in Prague. In 1896, he accepted the proposal of Yaroslav Hlava to organise a department of pathological anatomy at Lviv University. In the same year, the young doctor of medicine with a European medical diploma, Andrew Obrzut, arrived at Lviv University.
The Department of Pathological Anatomy of the Faculty of Medicine began its educational and scientific life in a unique three-storey patho-anatomical building (architect – Josef Braunseis) with two lecture rooms, four sectional halls (one with an...


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