[The enterprising Irishman Bernard Connor (1666-1698)].

In the thesis of the Irish physician Bernard Connor (1666-1698) from 1693 in Rheims he describes the torso of a man whose bones were joined together due to ankylosing spondylitis which is considered to be the first example of such skeletal findings. This communication must however be seen in connection with earlier and similar observations following soon after, which were published in the German and especially in the English literature. This further put into question the eponym of Strümpell-Marie-Bechterew disease commonly used in Germany for a long time. However, Bernard Connor was also a very interesting personality of the seventeenth century for other medical and historical reasons. With natural science oriented publications he attracted the opposition of the Clergy. In his 3-volume history of Poland where he worked for several months as the personal physician to King John III Sobieski, which was also published in German, he described very graphically not only the current political and social situation but also the medicine of the country which he found to be very backward. This stands in contrast to the exemplary achievements in rheumatology in Poland under European standards at the end of the twentieth century which are described and exemplified by some exceptional personalities.