Jànos Veres: the man behind the needle

Abstract

It has now been 30 years since the Hungarian physician Janos Veres died. There is hardly an individual who has become so well known years after his death. The reason for this is the advent of minimally invasive surgery. Surgeons worldwide use his needle to create the capnoperitoneum. But who was Janos Veres? To whom ought we pay tribute for the most frequently used access to the peritoneal and pleural cavity? Janos Veres was born on November 14, 1903, in Kismajteny (about 130 km south of Budapest), where his father worked for the railway company. He was educated at a Catholic school in Debrecen. From a young age, he exhibited a natural aptitude for the arts, especially painting (Fig. 1). His wish to study fine arts did not materialize. Instead, he enrolled as a medical student and graduated with an MD in 1927 from the University of Debrecen. After spending several months at the department of forensic pathology, he commenced work in the internal medicine department in Szombathely Hospital, close to the Austrian border. After earning his PhD degree on September 14, 1932, where his work dealt with the clinical features and treatment of tularemia, he was appointed head of department of 45 beds in Kapuvar. Here he gained extensive experience in treating pulmonary disorders, especially tuberculosis. At that time, lung collapse by artificial pneumothorax was used to exclude and rest the infected part of the lung from ventilation. Veres designed his needle specifically for this purpose—the safe creation of pneumothorax, a procedure he personally performed 862 times in the year 1933. He published a description of this invention in an obscure Hungarian journal. His invention remained unknown to the rest of the world until 1938, when he published his invention in German, which permitted his technique and method to become widespread [1, 2]. In 1933 he married Amalia Falko, with whom he had two sons, Janos, born in 1934, and Miklos, born 3 years later. In World War II, when Veres was 41 years old, he was conscripted into the army until the end of the war. A few months after his rehabilitation to civilian life, in August 1948, he was reinstated as chairman of his old unit. According to accounts from colleagues, in addition to being an excellent physician, Veres was a cultured and sensible man. There has some dispute on the correct spelling of his family name. However, in his original birth certificate, it is written as VERES (Fig. 2). His firstborn son, Janos, also became a doctor of internal medicine and moved to practice in Germany. His second son, Miklos, had poliomyelitis and had no chance for further education in their small town. Because of his son’s disability, Veres resigned from his position and moved to Budapest to enable and assist his son to study fine arts. Miklos became an accomplished painter. During his professional life, Veres worked in various hospitals in Budapest and was highly respected as a consultant. He had other scientific interests in addition to tularemia, including carbon dioxide snow treatments for peripheral arterial disease. He remarried after the death of his wife. With his second wife, Dr. Marta Veres, he had a daughter who also became a doctor; she specialized as a psychiatrist in Budapest. After retiring in 1973, Veres continued his work at the famous St. Gellert Hotel in Budapest. Veres died on January 27, 1979. W. U. Wayand (&) Ludwig Boltzmann Institut f. operative Laparoskopie, AKh Linz GmbH, 2. Chirurgische Abteilung, Krankenhausstrase 9, 4021 Linz, Austria e-mail: wolfgang.wayand@akh.linz.at