December 2017 was the 230th anniversary of Jan Evangelista Purkinje's birth, which prompted us to review the life of this remarkable man who established the world's first department of physiology in Wroclaw and whose name is immortalized in the cardiologic eponym, Purkinje fibers. This paper offers an overview of Purkinje's life, legacy, and numerous scientific discoveries.

The year 2016 was the 180th anniversary of Wilhelm Ebstein's birth and the 150th anniversary of his description of the congenital tricuspid valve malformation that came to be known as Ebstein anomaly. We present a brief history of the life and work of Dr. Wilhelm Ebstein. Despite his distinguished career, he is seemingly forgotten in his own birthplace. We include a review of the relevant historical medical literature.

In 1933, three doctors from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Paul Dudley White, William Franklin Bland, and Joseph Garland, described a case of an anomalous origin of the left coronary artery arising from the pulmonary artery (ALCAPA) in a three-month-old boy. The infant died...

In 1708, Adam Christian Thebesius, a 22-year-old student at Leiden University, presented his graduate thesis, Disputatio medica inauguralis de circulo sanguinis in corde. More than a doctoral dissertation, this groundbreaking work opened new channels into the study of the human coronary venous system. Thebesius' theory about the vascular communication between the coronary arteries and the chambers of the heart helped to advance understanding of hemodynamic principles and to clarify the physiologic pathways of the coronary circulation. The following article—the third in a trilogy about Lower Silesian scientists—provides an overview of the life story and achievements of this Silesian physician and innovator, whose name was immortalized in 2 cardiac eponyms: the Thebesian veins and the Thebesian valve.