George Nicholas Papanicolaou: the unlikely story of an intellectual immigrant; one driven to contribute on a large stage; one who finally succeeded by scientifically inspiring numerous cooperating individuals and organizations

Two Fortuitous Papers in 1917 That Conceived Diagnostic Cytopathology

“…Under the inaugural editorship of Dr. George L. Wied, Acta Cytologica started out as a forum to converge invited discussions of theoretical and practical problems in the flourishing discipline of diagnostic cytopathology [1]. Now, 60 years on, this commemorative diamond jubilee issue celebrates a journey through the historical and scientific events that ultimately transcended into contemporary practice [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. …”

“…In the following 44 years at Cornell, the husband-and-wife team went on to establish not only gynecological cytopathology and the Pap test, but also the scientific foundations of an entire diagnostic medical profession [2,3,4,8]. …”

Inception and Development of the Papanicolaou Stain Method

“…His meticulous study established baseline cytomorphology correlated with ovarian function and human aging in the absence of disease. This robust knowledge of usual, or typical, cytomorphology was to prove invaluable [2,15] .…”

“…A short summary of his presentation appeared in the conference's proceedings [8,15,17] . The following is from Papanicolaou (1928) [17] :…”

“…These events set Papanicolaou decisively upon a new career course in clinical research. The "lost decade" of cytopathology thus ended [2,8,10,15].…”