History and name
Crohn's disease was first described by Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771), and subsequent cases were described by John Berg in 1898, and by Polish surgeon Antoni Leśniowski in 1904.
Scottish physician T. Kennedy Dalziel described nine cases in 1913. Burrill Bernard Crohn, an American gastroenterologist, described fourteen cases in 1932, characterizing the disease as "Terminal ileitis: A new clinical entity"; the description was changed to "Regional ileitis" on publication.
It is by virtue of alphabetization rather than contribution that Crohn's name appeared as first author: because this was the first time the condition was reported in a widely-read journal, and the disease has come to be known as Crohn's disease for reasons of publicity rather than precedence.
In Poland the disease is known as Leśniowski-Crohn disease. In Germany the disease is known as Morbus Crohn (which means Crohn morbility or disease).
