Ludwik Rydygier

Ludwik Antoni Rydygier (21 August 1850 – 25 June 1920) was a Polish surgeon, professor of medicine, rector of the University of Lwów and Brigadier General of the Polish Army. He was one of the most distinguished Polish and worldwide known surgeons in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Biography Early life and education Born in Dusocin (then officially Dossoczyn) near Grudziądz (then officially Graudenz) in the Prussian Partition of Poland, a territory annexed by Prussia during the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. He was one of 13 children of Karol and Elżbieta Riedigier. Since childhood he accented his Polish origin and identity.

He attended the Collegium Marianum in Pelplin, He was also the first to document this procedure. In 1881, as the first in the world, he carried out a peptic ulcer resection. In 1884 he introduced a new method of surgical peptic ulcer treatment using Gastroenterostomy. Rydygier proposed (1900) original concepts for removing prostatic adenoma and introduced many other surgical techniques.

Due to Prussian harassment, in 1887, he renounced Prussian citizenship, and obtained Austrian citizenship, and sold his clinic in Chełmno to Leon Polewski, one of his employees (Rydygier already lived in the Austrian Partition of Poland). Numerous hospitals in Poland are named after him, including in Kraków, Częstochowa, Toruń, Łódź, Suwałki. Also the Nicolaus Copernicus University Ludwik Rydygier Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz and a lecture hall of the Medical University of Gdańsk bear his name.