Did you know?

Poland has a large number of people who influenced the world with their outstanding experiments and ideas. We have listed a few of them to bring you closer the most important names of science & education:

• Ignacy Łukasiewicz (1822-1882), a Polish pharmacist, is the father of petroleum industry & the inventor of paraffin lamp. First in the world to distil pure paraffin and the one who established a crude oil mine near the town of Krosno (still in operation).

• Andrzej Tarkowski (born in 1933), a Polish embryologist, is the pioneer of research in the embryology of mammals. His research created theoretical and practical foundations for the achievements of biology and medicine in the 20th century: in vitro fertilisation, cloning and the discovery of stem cells.

• The international designations of blood types 0, A, B and AB were introduced by a Polish microbiologist, serologist and immunologist Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884-1954) who also discovered the inheritance mechanism of blood types and the Rhesus (Rh) factor.

• Vitamin studies as an area of science as well as the term “vitamin” itself were established by Kazimierz Funk (1884-1967), a biochemist of Polish origin, who also discovered the B1 vitamin (thiamine).

• Chandigarh (India) was designed by Le Corbusier, in the 1950s. He was in fact the second architect of the city, after the initial plan was prepared by Albert Mayer and the Polish architect Maciej Nowicki.

• Marie Curie who won the noble prize in two different sciences was Polish.

• Oct 23, 2014: Surgeons in Poland led by Dr Pawel Tabakow performed a ground-breaking cell transplant that allowed a paralyzed man to walk again. This is the first ever break-through in medical history.

• A glorious past in the Beauty Industry….
  • … the very first perfume in history based on alcohol – The Queen of Hungary’s Water – was created in the 14th century thanks to a Pole – Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary?
  • … Helena Rubinstein, who was the first manufacturer to offer a sun-protecting cream and who popularised mascara and colour face powders, was born and raised in Cracow in Poland, where she also gained her first business experiences?
  • … Max Factor, founder of the company of the same name, who produced the first-ever everyday make-up foundation in 1909, was born in Łódź in Poland as Maksymilian Faktorowicz?
  • … Dr Oscar Troplowitz, who turned his small pharmacy in Hamburg into the international Beiersdorf cosmetics concern, was born in 1890 in Silesia, contemporary Poland?