GA-ALL-LEE

There is no good reason that I should know this.  I never gave it much of a thought.  No reason that I should.  Then, voila!  I saw this in print somewhere.  It's all about the pap smear.

I never knew where the word 'pap' came from or what it meant.  For all I knew, it was an acronym. Don't ask me what words the letters stood for.  I just thought it was a girl thing that I didn't need to know about.   Girls get their 'pap smear' and guys a digital prostrate check.  

Then, one day recently, I came across it.  Ga-all-lee!  Older than dirt and I never knew where they got that name.  'Pap' stands for Doctor Papanikolaou.  He invented the Pap smear - a test for detecting cervical cancer.

Georgious Papanikolaou was born in Greece, educated in Germany and practiced in the USA.  He was the recipient of many awards for his work in cytopathology - the study and diagnosis of diseases on the cellular level.  In the first half of the twentieth century, cervical cancer was the most common cause of cancer death for American women - no more.   

Dr. Papanikolaou advanced medicine for us all.  

😷