Jan Mikulicz-Radecki

Jan Mikulicz-Radecki, known in German as Johann Freiherr von Mikulicz-Radecki, was a German-Polish-Austrian surgeon who worked mainly in the German Empire. Born in Czerniowce in the Austrian Empire in 1850 and trained in Vienna under Theodor Billroth, he held surgical posts at Kraków, Königsberg and, from 1890, Breslau, where he died in 1905. He contributed greatly to cancer surgery of the digestive system: he was the first to suture a perforated gastric ulcer in 1885, to surgically restore part of the oesophagus in 1886 and to remove a malignant part of the colon in 1903, and in 1881 he developed improved esophagoscope and gastroscope models. A strong advocate of Joseph Lister antiseptic methods, he created a surgical mask and was the first to use medical gloves during surgery. Several conditions and techniques carry his name, including Mikulicz disease and the Heineke-Mikulicz pyloroplasty.