Vilém Dušan Lambl

Vilém Dušan Lambl (December 5, 1824 - February 12, 1895) was a Czech physician. He was a professor at the Universities of Warsaw and Kharkov, and also worked at Löschner's children's hospital in Prague.

He is remembered for his description of an intestinal protozoan parasite that was initially discovered by Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), and is a cause of gastroenteritis. Lambl called the protozoan Cercomonas intestinalis. In 1888 the name was changed to Lamblia intestinalis by zoologist Raphael Anatole Émile Blanchard (1819-1900}. In 1915 the species was renamed to Giardia lamblia by zoologist Charles Wardell Stiles (1867-1941} in honor of Lambl and French biologist Alfred Mathieu Giard (1846-1908). Today the illness caused by the parasite is called either lambliasis or giardiasis.

Lambl was also a student of linguistics; after receiving his degree in medicine from the University of Prague in the 1840s, he spent considerable time in the Balkans studying southern Slavic languages.

Eponym named after Lambl:
 * Lambl's excrescences: Small fibrin deposits on the aortic valve.

References:
 * Who Named It?, Vilem Dusan Lambl

Vilém Dušan Lambl