Alfred Poland
Encyclopedia
Sir Alfred Poland was a 19th century British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 surgeon
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...

. He is now best known for the first account of Poland syndrome
Poland syndrome
Poland syndrome is a rare birth defect characterized by underdevelopment or absence of the chest muscle on one side of the body and webbing of the fingers of the hand on the same side mostly common on the right...

, a congenital deformity now described as an underdevelopment or absence of the chest muscle (pectoralis
Pectoralis major muscle
The pectoralis major is a thick, fan-shaped muscle, situated at the chest of the body. It makes up the bulk of the chest muscles in the male and lies under the breast in the female...

) on one side of the body and webbing of the fingers (cutaneous syndactyly
Syndactyly
Syndactyly is a condition wherein two or more digits are fused together. It occurs normally in some mammals, such as the siamang and kangaroo, but is an unusual condition in humans.-Classification:...

) of the hand on the same side (ipsilateral hand).

Poland described the disease that bears his name (Poland syndrome
Poland syndrome
Poland syndrome is a rare birth defect characterized by underdevelopment or absence of the chest muscle on one side of the body and webbing of the fingers of the hand on the same side mostly common on the right...

) in 1841, in a paper titled "Deficiency of the pectoral muscles" (Guy's Hosp. Rep. 6:191-193, 1841), in which he described the dissected body of Marc DeYoung, a deceased convict. He received the eponym
Eponym
An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

 more than a century later in 1962 through the recognition of British surgeon Patrick Wensley Clarkson (1911-1969) after he operated on a case similar to that of Poland.

Alfred Poland was a modest, retiring man, who was quite careless about his appearance. He was warned by the Treasurer to dress more decently and cleanly, but ignored this advice. He was known by his colleagues to be an excellent surgeon, but would time his operations at unusual hours so that few observed him. Perhaps for those reasons, he had a small practice.

Apart from his surgical dexterity he was renowned at the hospital for his encyclopedic knowledge and the excellence of his presentations, both oral and written. He was an extremely popular teacher, but his career was punctuated by recurrent illness so that he remarked that he was like a cat and had nine lives. After one severe bout of hemoptysis, his physician ordered him to bed, only to see him the next day doing the rounds with his students.

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