Simon van Creveld

Simon van Creveld qualified in medicine in 1918 and obtained his medical doctorate in 1922. He then worked in the physiological laboratory at Groningen until 1923 and with the paediatrician Heinrich Finkelstein (1865-1942) in Berlin. He then trained in paediatrics at various hospitals before he commenced private practice. Besides his practice he was affiliated with the neonatal division at the Wilhelmina Gasthuis, and was head of the Baby Clinic at this university hospital.

Simon van Creveld was appointed professor of paediatrics at the University of Amsterdam in 1933, but was removed by the Nazis in 1941. Together with his wife he was incarcerated in a concentration camp but survived. At the end of the war he was re-instated in the chair of paediatrics. He developed a special clinic for haemophiliacs and a convalescent home for children.

There is an anecdote, of uncertain veracity, concerning the delineation of the Ellis-van Creveld syndrome. It is said that Ellis and van Creveld met fortuitously in a railway carriage while travelling to a medical congress and that in the course of the conversation they realised that they were both contemplating publication of an account of the same disorder. They agreed to publish a joint description of the condition that now bears their names, Ellis being accorded priority for the sake of euphony and by virtue of his alphabetical precedence.

Obituary in Nederlandsch tijdschrift voor geneeskunde, Amsterdam, 1971, 115: 583.