This blog post is an expert from Chapter 1 of my book: Vibrant Villi – Coeliac Disease Made Simple.
The history of coeliac disease can be traced back to ancient times.
2nd Century
The first known description of the disease was written by the Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia in the 2nd century AD.
Aretaeus
Aretaeus, a distinguished Greek physician, holds a special place in medical history as one of antiquity’s most influential writers. His eight medical texts explored a wide range of ailments, including asthma, epilepsy, pneumonia, and the condition we now recognize as coeliac disease. You could say he was the “Jack of all ailments” in his day—minus the modern diagnostic tools, of course.
In his book On the Causes and Symptoms of Chronic Diseases, Aretaeus offered the first known description of coeliac disease, which he called “coeliac affection.” The term ‘koiliakos’ was derived from the Greek word ‘koelia,’ meaning abdomen—a clear hint that something was afoot (or ab-domen!) in the digestive system. He described the condition succinctly:
“If the stomach be irretentive of the food and if it pass through undigested and crude, and nothing ascends into the body, we call such persons coeliacs.”
For a man living over 1,800 years ago, his observations were impressively accurate. Aretaeus noted that this affliction primarily affected children and was often associated with malnutrition and wasting. His treatment advice? Avoid grains like wheat, barley, and millet. In other words, he was centuries ahead of the modern gluten-free movement—no trendy quinoa bowls required.
Aretaeus didn’t stop at coeliac disease. He also wrote about diabetes, asthma, epilepsy, and more, proving himself to be a true medical multitasker. His sharp observations and practical advice laid the foundation for modern medicine, showing that even in the ancient world, science was far from crude.
19th Century
For centuries, coeliac disease was an enigma—a mysterious and often fatal condition that baffled physicians. But by the 19th century, the medical world started making headway, thanks to some diligent researchers. Among them was Samuel Gee (1839–1911), an English paediatrician who, in 1888, provided a game-changing breakthrough in understanding the disease.
Samuel Gee
In his paper, On the Coeliac Affection, published in the St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Reports, Gee offered the first comprehensive modern description of coeliac disease. He didn’t just stumble onto his findings; he meticulously studied over 100 children with chronic indigestion, wasting, and other symptoms. If Gee had a superhero alias, it might have been “Captain Observant.”
Gee noted that the disease’s tell-tale signs included chronic diarrhoea, abdominal distension, wasting, and stunted growth—symptoms that sound like a checklist for a very unpleasant day. He also observed a higher prevalence among children from poorer backgrounds, possibly because their diets included more grain-based staples (or perhaps because gluten-free croissants hadn’t been invented yet).
Most impressively, Gee theorized that coeliac disease was caused by a food intolerance, decades before “gluten-free” became a dinner-party buzzword. He discovered that his patients improved on a diet excluding wheat and other grains, but the exact culprit eluded him. Gluten, lurking like an invisible dietary villain, would remain unmasked for decades.
Beyond coeliac, Gee was a busy man. He contributed to understanding conditions like cyclic vomiting syndrome and scarlet fever, while also mentoring a generation of paediatricians. A respected teacher and practitioner, Gee’s legacy reached far beyond his own research, though he probably never guessed he’d inspire millions to swear off bread centuries later.
Gee’s groundbreaking work on coeliac disease transformed countless lives. Today, he stands as a towering figure in the history of coeliac research—a hero of the gluten-intolerant, even if he never got to taste a slice of gluten-free pizza himself.
20th Century
A couple of decades later in the 1920s, the American paediatrician Sidney Haas conducted a series of experiments that showed that carbohydrates were the culprit food in coeliac disease.
Sidney Haas
He is best known for introducing the “banana diet,” a treatment regimen that involved feeding coeliac patients a diet rich in bananas and other fruits and vegetables. Haas’s work on coeliac disease was groundbreaking at the time, as the cause of the disease was not yet understood. He observed that children with coeliac disease who ate bananas showed significant improvement in their symptoms. Haas hypothesized that bananas contained an enzyme that could break down the protein that triggers the illness.
Haas’s banana diet was not a cure, but it did provide a way to manage symptoms. It was widely used in the 1950s and 1960s, before the development of a gluten-free diet.
Haas’s work on coeliac disease was controversial, as some doctors believed that bananas were not an effective treatment. However, his work paved the way for the development of new treatments.The history of coeliac disease can be traced back to ancient times.
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