[Stanislaw Rybicki--the author of the first description of anatomopathological changes in eclampsia]

At the turn of the 19th and 20th century, the term eclampsia referred to a collection of symptoms of some kind of suffering that occurred during pregnancy, during birth or shortly thereafter, whose characteristic feature were tonic-clonic seizures, involving bigger or smaller loss of consciousness and certain changes in the structure and functioning of internal organs of the patient. The aetiology of this severe condition was completely unknown, although it was a very common one and frequently with fatal consequences to the patient. The author of the first published on Polish soil, and according to some sources, even in the world, anatomopathological description of the lesions of eclampsia, is erroneously considered to be a Warsaw anatomopathologist--Edward Przewoski. However, in Poland, the priority should be given to Stanislaw Rybicki, a doctor from the town of Skierniewice, an extremely meticulous researcher of the problem.