Ludwik Rydygier

Who was Ludwik Rydygier?

Ludwik Rydygier was a Polish surgeon.

Born in Dossoczyn near Graudenz, at the time part of the Province of Prussia after partitioning of Poland. Since childhood he accented his Polish origin.

Between 1859 and 1861 he was learning in gymnasium in Konitz, then also in gymnasium in Kulm, which he graduated in 1869. In years 1869-1878 he studied medical sciences at the University of Greifswald.

After studies he was running a private clinic in Kulm. There he wrote many of his papers in the field of surgery.

In 1887 he was appointed to work at the surgery faculty at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In 1897 he was asked to lead the new surgery faculty and clinic at Lwów University, to which he agreed.

He was at his time one of the most distinguished Polish and worldwide known surgeons. In 1880, as the first in Poland and second in the world he succeeded in surgical removal of the pylorus in a patient suffering from stomach cancer. He was also the first to document this procedure. In 1881, as the first in the world, he carried out a peptic ulcer resection. In 1884 he introduced a new method of surgical peptic ulcer treatment using Gastroenterostomy. Rydygier proposed original concepts for removing prostatic adenoma and introduced many other surgical techniques.