Hakaru Hashimoto.

H Hashimoto is the name behind the disease known to all of us as Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.1 However, it is not well known that it was at the relatively y o u n g a g e o f 3 1 years, that Hashimoto described the hitherto unknown d i s ease in Arch iv Fur Kl in i she Chirurgie, the German j o u r n a l o f c l i n i c a l surgery. The description, t i t l e d “ N o t e s o f lymphomatous in the thyroid gland (Struma Lymphomatosa)”, was about 30 pages long, and had five figures. Hashimoto chose to study an odd goitrethat was different from other types of thyroid swellings usually noted. He described the disease, used thyroidectomy specimens to further his findingsand even followed up the patients to study the clinical condition. His descriptions of the lymphomatous thyroid swellings probably laid the foundations of the distinction of this autoimmune thyroid disease , f rom the hard goitre that resulted due to Riedl’s Thyroiditis. Today, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, or autoimmune thyroid disease, is among the commonest thyroid diseases worldwide.2-4