Just over 100 years ago Max Wilms obtained his medical degree at the Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Bonn, Germany, following the defense of his "Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doctorwurde" entitled "Uber Resection des Oesophagus" [ 11. This medical thesis offers an overview on oesophagus surgery, going back to 161 I , and discusses the technique, possible indications (all of which are rejected except carcinoma of the upper third part of the oesophagus), and expected median survival. Based on the five case reports available it was 160 days after "Oesophagotomia," a surgical procedure first performed by Czemy in 1877 [ I]. For the young doctor this defense was not so much the culmination of his medical studies but rather the beginning of a new era, in which he turned out to be productive in different aspects of medicine.
Carl Max Wilhelm Wilms (Fig. 1) was born on November 5 , 1867 in Hunshoven near Aachen, Germany, as the second son of Peter Mathias Wilms and Emilie Wilms, nee Knauer [ 2 , 3 ] . Initially he opted to follow his father and oldest brother, who had both chosen law as a career, but after only one semester he decided to switch to medical school. As was the custom in those days he conducted his studies at different Universities, one semester in Munich, one in Marburg, one in Berlin, and three in Bonn [I]. Prior to his fifth semester, however, he did his (compulsory) military service in the "Kaiserlichen Bayrischen Infanterie Regiment 'Konig' " [ 11.
Following his final medical examination in 189 1, and having already decided to become a surgeon, he first became an assistant at the "Pathologisch-Anatomischen Institut" in Giessen where he worked for 4 years with Dr. Eugen Bostroem. This he claimed would give him some "all round training". It was in Giessen that Wilms initiated his study on nephroblastoma, the most common abdominal tumor of childhood. This study would result 8 years later in his famous monograph "Die Mischgeschwulste der Niere" [4]. Dr Wilms was not the first person, however, to publish on what later became known as Wilms tumor. Renal childhood tumors had been described more than 80 years earlier by Rance in 1814 [ 5 ] .