President inaugurates world’s first museum for Pap smear pioneer Papanikolaou

President Konstantinos Tassoulas has opened the Georgios N. Papanikolaou Museum in Kymi, Evia — described as the first museum devoted solely to the doctor who developed the Pap smear.

The museum occupies the family house where Papanikolaou (1883–1962) lived until he was 14, next to the house where he was born on 13 May 1883. The three-year project was designed by museologist Iliana Zioga and museographer Thanasis Athanasiadis, with most funding from the Municipality of Kymi-Aliveri and the Region of Central Greece.

“Few people in history can claim to have given millions of their fellow human beings the most precious commodity — life — as Papanikolaou did,” Tassoulas said. “The method that bears his name, the Pap smear, revolutionized the early diagnosis of cancer. It has saved, and continues to save, countless lives of women in every corner of the globe.”

The president said that after studies abroad the young doctor “returned to Kymi with his degree barely in hand, and cared for patients with affection,” later serving in the Balkan Wars. He chose “the noble path of service over personal acclaim.” In autumn 1957, already famous worldwide, Papanikolaou came back to Kymi after 44 years away. “Today, in this very house, the doors are opening to the world’s first museum dedicated exclusively to his memory and his work.”

Tassoulas thanked the municipality, the Georgios N. Papanikolaou Institute, descendants and others who backed the project.

The displays follow his school years, a doctorate in Germany, and his 1913 move to the United States, where he worked for 47 years at Cornell. Letters in the collection, Zioga has said, undercut the idea that a wealthy background made the discovery easy: he often wrote home asking for money. The Pap test became standard screening for cervical cancer and still carries his name.

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