Dr. George Papanicolaou - Clinton, NJ - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Born on the island of Euboea in Greece, George Papanicolaou, the son of a physician, first pursued a music education but soon decided to follow his father’s footsteps into a medical career. Some of his early endeavors were with a leper colony and the Greek military but eventually he gravitated more toward medical research rather than actual practice.

While serving in the military during the First Balkan War in 1912-13, Papanicolaou and his wife decided to immigrate to the United States in pursuit of better career opportunities in medical research. Arriving with little money and no knowledge of English, they worked at menial jobs until finally securing work in medical research at the New York University and Cornell University Medical College.

His early research on the menstrual cycles of guinea pigs, and eventually human subjects, revealed that a lot of information could be obtained by examining superficial cells scraped from the cervix and smeared on a microscope slide. For instance, the difference between malignant cells and normal cells showed clearly, thus providing a relatively simple and inexpensive method for the early detection of cervical cancer. This procedure, known as the Papanicolaou test or Pap test for short, became the standard for cervical and uterine cancer screening all over the world.

The hard-working Papanicolaou (it’s rumored that he never took a vacation) became a professor at Cornell and went on to write four books and over 100 articles. He received many awards and accolades during his life as well as appearing on postage stamps of both Greece and the United States. He died in 1962 at the age of 78 of a heart attack and is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Clinton New Jersey.
(Source: wikipedia.org)

Description: See Long Description above. Date of birth: 05/13/1883 Date of death: 02/19/1962 Area of notoriety: Medicine Marker Type: Horizontal Marker Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: none Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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