Remember the Romanian pioneers: Alexandru Obregia (1860-1937) - first in vivo suboccipital puncture

Vol. 60 No. 1, 2019

ROMANIAN JOURNAL of MORPHOLOGY and EMBRYOLOGY

Mircea Vicentiu Saceleanu, Andrei Alexandru Marinescu, Aurel George Mohan, Mihai Popescu, Alexandru Vlad Ciurea

In a time when doctors had limited knowledge about neuroanatomy and were focused primarily on clinical data, paraclinical investigations were overlooked even though they offered much needed information about the patients. Prof. Dr. Alexandru Obregia (1860-1937) is one of the forgotten pioneers of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) investigation techniques. He envisioned, performed, and wrote about the very first in vivo suboccipital puncture, in 1908. The invention of this investigation technique was a considerable step forward in understanding the CSF and was Prof. Alexandru Obregia s most important scientific work. This, in turn, inspired Thoma Ionescu (1860-1926) to create the general rachianesthesia technique, in 1919, which allowed surgeons to perform a new range of procedures safely. The universal medical literature bears witness that this procedure was performed in other countries only after five years by Antonio et Bramman and after 11 years by Wegeforth, Ayer et Errik, thus confirming without a doubt Prof. Alexandru Obregia s priority in this historical finding.

Corresponding author: Aurel George Mohan, Associate Professor, MD, PhD; e-mail: mohanaurel@yahoo.com

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