Teofil Simchowicz (1879-1957): the scientist who coined senile plaques in neuropathology.

Teofil Simchowicz (1879-1957) was a Polish-Jewish neurologist who studied medicine at the Warsaw University, and worked under the founder of modern Polish school of neurology, Edward Flatau (1868-1932). It was Flatau who encouraged him to join Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915) in Munich. Simchowicz focused his research on the neuropathological changes in dementia. He emigrated with his wife to Palestine, where he continued to work as a consulting neurologist. Simchowicz coined the terms senile plaques, senile index, and granulovacuolar degeneration - discovered in the hippocampus in patients with Alzheimer's disease, and described the nasomental reflex. Simchowicz was a prolific researcher in the field of neuropathology, especially neurodegeneration but also in clinical neurology.