e-twinning Meeting Europe

1. George Papanikolaou
Date of Birth: 13th May 1883
Date of death: 19th February 1962
Place of birth: Kymi Evia
A few words about his life:
George Papanikolaou was born on 13th May 1883 in Kymi,
Evia. He was the son of the doctor and politician Nikolas
Papanikolaou who served as Mayor and senator of Kymi. He
spent his childhood in Kymi where he finished Primary school. Then his parents sent him to
Athens to complete his schooling. In 1898, at the age of 15 he enrolled to the Medical School of
the University of the Athens from which he graduated in 1904 with merit. In 1907, he went to
Germany for post graduated studied against his father’s will to practice medicine with him in
Greece. Three years later he became professor of Natural Studies of the University of Munich
with his paper “The circumstances of sex differentiations of daphnoilds”.
A few words about his work:
In 1917 he studied the vaginal fur of lower mammals and correlated its morphology to the
hormonal cycle and the relative differentiations in the uterus and ovaries of animals. Later he
made clinical and laboratory studies on the diagnostic value in testing the cells of the vaginal
fur of humans using as his first “guinea pig “ his wife. The research was then expanded to
include women in “Women’s Hospital” in New York and was the base for the foundation of the
method for early diagnosis of cancer. In 1928 he made his first announcement entitled “New
diagnosis of cancer”, which was at first received with skepticism by the USA. He was very sure
of the value of his method for the cellular diagnosis of cancer of uterus and he continued
vigorously his research.