Frans van Buchem

Life & Legacy

Franciscus Stephanus Petrus (Frans) van Buchem (30 November 1897 – 1 August 1979) was a Dutch physician and professor, known for the discovery of Van Buchem disease, which was named after him. He married Elisabeth Euphemia Maria Christiana Nuijens in January, 1930, aged 32. His PhD thesis was supervised by Nobel Prize winner Professor Willem Einthoven. Frans was, among other things, the Chief Physician in Internal Medicine of the St Elisabeth Hospital and after the end of World War Two, became a professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Groningen. In 1954, van Buchem diagnosed a patient with what he referred to as hyperosteosis corticales generalisata familiaris, later named Van Buchem disease. A year later, he published an article in Acta Radiologica on the disease.