Background
Crohn was born on June 13, 1884 in New York City, New York, United States; the son of Theodore and Lean (Baum) Crohn.
Crohn was born on June 13, 1884 in New York City, New York, United States; the son of Theodore and Lean (Baum) Crohn.
Crohn received a Bachelor of Arts degree from City College of New York in 1902. Five years later he earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. Also Burrill was given the degrees of Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy from the same university, for his experimental researches concerning intra-abdominal hemorrhage.
Crohn began his career as an intern in pathology at Mount Sinai Hospital in 1907. Thirteen years later he was promoted to the head of gastroenterology department at the same hospital. The same year Burrill joined the staff of Columbia University and in 1946, was named a consultant in gastroenterology.
Since 1945 he took the same position Mount Sinai Hospital and held it until his retirement as a consultant emeritus. There Crohn, along with colleagues, identified fourteen patients whose symptoms and intestinal abnormalities discovered at surgery, while consistent with each other, did not fit any previously identified disease. Also Burrill, along with Leon Ginzburg and Gordon Oppenheimer, prepared the classic paper "Regional Ileitis: A Pathologic and Clinical Entity", describing that new condition. His work helped correct the thinking that the ailment was actually a form of tuberculosis rather than an inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract.
His research into the causes of the Crohn's disease was centered around his personal conviction that it was caused by the same pathogen, a bacterium called "Mycobacterium paratuberculosis", responsible for the similar condition that afflicts cattle called Johne's disease. Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease. He practiced medicine until he was in his nineties.
Crohn was a president of the American Gastroenterology Association.
Crohn was a soft-spoken, modest and universally admired physician.
In 1912, Burrill Crohn married Lucile Pels, with whom he divorced in 1927. They had a son and a daughter. Then on June 30, 1948, he married Rose Blumenthal. He has five grandchildren.
