G. N. Papanicolaou was born on May the 13, 1883 in the city of Kymi on the Greek island of Euboea. He received his MD degree from the University of Athens in 1904 and a PhD from the University of Munich in 1910. After service as a medical officer in the Balkan War of 1912-1913, he came to New York with Mary (for over 50 years Dr Pap's life companion). George's violin playing at restaurants and coffee-shops supplied them with a few extra cents. Papanicolaou was appointed assistant in the Pathology Laboratory at the New York Hospital. In 1928 he presented his work "New Cancer Diagnosis" to the third race betterment conference (Battle Creek, Michigan). But the work was met with scepticism. The now famous monograph "The Diagnostic Value of Vaginal Smears in Carcinoma of the Uterus" was published in 1941 in the Am J Obst Gyn. During this time, he developed his method of preservation of these cells by wet fixation and precise staining. Papanicolaou persisted with his ideas, and finally cytologic examination of the cervix was accepted. The power of Papanicolaou screening for uterine cancer was remarkable. The first National Cytology Congress, held in 1948, hailed this new diagnostic tool for carcinoma of the cervix as unique because it could detect cancer before it was visible. He described the importance of a distinct cellular pattern corresponding to cervical intraepithelial neoplastic lesions. The value of this pattern, expressing evolutionary steps in the development of cancer at individual cell levels, was not appreciated.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)