The Life and Death of Ismar Boas

The Physician From Vienna

“…An old-fashioned doctor's office, displaying none of the modern shiny nickel, or glass furnishings. In this dimly lit room this physician has received and treated his patients for 40 years (1).…”

“…Thus ended the life of a pioneering founder of gastroenterology. 1 In 1886, Boas opened the first specialty clinic for digestive diseases in Berlin. In 1895, he founded the first gastroenterology journal, presently entitled Digestion.…”

European roots of American gastroenterology - The Ismar Boas Lecture of the 56th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Gastroenterology, Münster, 13 September 2001 -

“…In 1886 Ismar Boas in Berlin was the first physician to call himself a specialist in gastrointestinal diseases, to start a gastroenterological policlinic and laboratory, and in 1895 to publish a gastroenterological journal Archiv für Verdauungskrankheiten mit Einschluss der Stoffwechselpathologie und der Dietetik (later Gastroenterologia and then Digestion) [33,34]. His academic and clinical colleagues in internal medicine were hostile to such specialization, and he was unable to start the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Verdauungs-und Stoffwechselkrankheiten until 1914.…”

How the Irish savoured gastroenterology

“…Ismar Boas, widely regarded as the first gastroenterologist, did not open his specialty clinic in Berlin until 1886 or edit the first edition of the very first journal dedicated to the field until 1895 [4]. Ismar Boas, widely regarded as the first gastroenterologist, did not open his specialty clinic in Berlin until 1886 or edit the first edition of the very first journal dedicated to the field until 1895 [4].…”