Teofil simchowicz (1879-1957): The scientist who coined senile plaques in neuropathology

Teofil Simchowicz (1879–1957) was a Polish-Jewish neurologist who studied medicine at the Warsaw University, and worked under the founder of modern Polish school of neurology, Edward Flatau (1868–1932). It was Flatau who encouraged him to join Alois Alzheimer (1864–1915) in Munich. Simchowicz focused his research on the neuropathological changes in dementia. He emigrated with his wife to Palestine, where he continued to work as a consulting neurologist. Simchowicz coined the terms senile plaques, senile index, and granulovacuolar degeneration – discovered in the hippocampus in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, and described the nasomental reflex. Simchowicz was a prolific researcher in the field of neuropathology, especially neurodegeneration but also in clinical neurology.