Discovering celiac disease

In celiac disease a gluten-induced small bowel mucosal lesion develops gradually in genetically susceptible persons.

Celiac disease had its roots both literally and metaphorically, when primitive humans switched from the hunter-gatherer mode to a more settled agricultural experience.

Doctors have known about celiac disease for a long time. Articles describing individuals suffering from diarrhea first appeared over two thousand years ago.

An illness resembling celiac disease was described as early as the first century AD by Aretacus of Cappadocia.

In the early 19th century, a Dr. Mathew Baillie, published his observations on a chronic diarrheal disorder of adults causing malnutrition and characterized by a gas-distended abdomen.

It was Dr. Samuel Gee who, in London, England in 1887, in his seminal study ‘On the Coeliac Affection’ first described the condition in detail, and even presciently observed that successful therapy was to be found in changing a patient’s diet.

In 1941, the link between celiac disease and wheat was finally established. At a conference in 1932, Dr. Willem-Karel Dicke, a Dutch pediatrician heard a report about a patient relapsing into diarrhea after resuming the consumption of bread.

He then began experimenting with a wheat free diet shortly thereafter, between 1934 and 1936. In 1941, he published a report that children with symptoms of celiac disease got better when the bread made from wheat was removed from their diet.
Discovering celiac disease