[Associate professor Oscar Liszka, pioneer of surgery in Poland in the 40th anniversary of the first operation].
Oscar Liszka was the first in Poland who performed operations on human brain with the use of stereotactic apparatus. It took place in 1961 in the department of Neurosurgery in Cracow. He introduced Guiot-Gultingham method, which was modified in 1964 by Wicentowicz, Goscinski and Kunicki. Since 1964 stereotactic neurosurgical operations were carried out in the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw by E. Mempel. He introduced the original Talairach method and Coopers in Parkinson syndrome. Several years later, J. Bidzinski used the apparatus of Leksell at the Department of Neurosurgery, Medical Academy in Warsaw, stereotactic procedures were also performed by Mert and Bromowicz in Lodz, by Trojanowski and Turowski in Lublin, by Slosarek in Szczecin, by Sloniewski in Gdansk and by Harat in Bydgoszcz, as well Koszewski and Zabek in Warsaw. The treatments aimed at compensating for the profound loss of dopamine in the substantia nigra substantially limited the number of stereotactic operations from 1970 to 1980. Recent advancements in Computerized Axial Tomography and Magnetic Resonance imaging as well as in the histological techniques have led to new opportunities for a small stereo-static biopsy for histological diagnosis of profound brain tumors.