Moritz Kaposi

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Moritz Kaposi (Hungarian: Móric Kaposi) (b. 23 October 1837 in Kaposvár, Hungary; d. 6 March 1902 in Vienna, Austria) was an important Hungarian physician and dermatologist, discoverer of the rare skin sarcoma that received his name.

Born to a Jewish family, originally his surname was Kohn, but with his conversion to the Catholic faith he changed it to Kaposi, in reference to his place of birth. The reason behind it was that wanted to marry a daughter of current dermatology chairman, Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra, and wanted to advance in the society, which he could not have being of Jewish faith. In 1855 Kaposi began to study medicine at the University of Vienna and attained a doctorate in 1859. In his dissertation, titled Dermatologie und Syphilis (1866) he made an important contribution to the field. Kaposi was appointed as professor at the University of Vienna in 1875, and in 1881 he became member of the board of the Vienna General Hospital and director of its clinic of skin diseases.

Together with his mentor, Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra, he authored the book Lehrbuch der Hautkrankheiten (Textbook of Skin Diseases) in 1878. Kaposi’s main work, however, was Pathologie und Therapie der Hautkrankheiten in Vorlesungen für praktische Ärzte und Studierende (Pathology and Therapy of the Skin Diseases in Lectures for Practical Physicians and Students), published in 1880, and which became one of the most significant books in the history of dermatology, being translated to several languages. Among other diseseas, Kaposi was the first to study Lichen scrofolosorum and Lupus erythematosus. In all, he published over 150 books and papers.

His name entered into the history of medicine in 1872, when he described for the first time Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare cancer of the skin, which he had discovered in five elderly male patients and which he initially named "idiopathic multiple pigmented sarcoma". More than a century later, the appearance of this disease in young gay men in New York, San Francisco and other coastal cities in the United States was one of the first indications that a new disease, now called AIDS has appeared.

According to his biographer, Dr. J.D. Oriel, "in his lifetime, Moritz Kaposi was acknowledged as one of the great masters of the Vienna School of Dermatology, a superb clinician and renowned teacher". While his mentor Ferdinand von Hebra is considered the "father of dermatology", Kaposi was one of the first to establish dermatology on its anatomical pathology scientific basis. His scheme with marrying Hebra's daughter and changing his name worked - he became the chairman after Hebra's death.

[edit] Works

Lehrbuch der Hautkrankheiten (1878 with Ferdinand von Hebra)
Pathologie und Therapie der Hautkrankheiten in Vorlesungen für praktische Ärzte und Studierende (1880)
Pathologie und Therapie der Syphilis (1881)
Handatlas der Hautkrankenheiten (1879)
Idiopathisches multiples Pigmentsarkom der Haut (1872) Arch Dermatol Syph 4:265-73 (original article describing Kaposi's sarcoma)
English translation of article describing Kaposi's sarcoma: Kaposi M. Idiopathic multiple pigmented sarcoma of the skin. CA Cancer J Clin 1982;1982(32):342-7.