1978-1980 Peter Gedigk, Germany

IAP President 1978-1980

Peter Gedigk was born in Germany and graduated in Medicine from the University of Innsbruck, Austria in 1944.

From 1951 he spent his professional life in the Institute for Pathology, Marburg, Germany, mainly as Chairman of the Institute. For his doctorate degree in medicine, he worked on cervical chordoma. He studied Biochemistry, mathematics and chemistry and utilized his knowledge on chemistry to introduce histochemical and cytochemical staining reactions. He was a founding member of the German Histochemical Society.

He studied diseases caused by the Marburg virus, the pathogenesis and early stages of stomach cancer, and angiosarcomas of the liver. As a member of the European Liver Study Group, Peter participated in classifying chronic hepatitis and alcoholic cirrhosis. He took great pride in carrying on the work of the famous textbook on general pathology and pathologic anatomy which was founded by Ribbert and Hamperl. Together with Eder from Munich, he edited the textbook and from 1971-1990, five editions were published.

Peter was President of the German Division of the IAP from 1986-87. He was a member of the editorial boards of several professional journals.