Jacek Kanski is mostly remembered by his many textbooks, including Clinical Ophthalmology, known as the Ophthalmological Bible, many of them are still in use by thousands of doctors around the world., He passed away at home on the 5th of January 2019, aged 79 due to cancer. We believe that some biographical and professional aspects of his life are so interesting that they deserve to be delivered in the form of this article.

Jacek Kanski, born in Warsaw, Poland on August the 5th in 1939, was emotionally connected with his homeland during the whole of his life. His father, Jerzy Jordan Kanski, head of the defence forces of Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły, left Poland in September 1939, accompanying the Marshal during the evacuation of the government to Romania. During World War II he served in general Anders’ army. Jacek J. Kanski spent the war with his mother—Adela Jozefa (Wroblewska) Kanski in Warsaw, and later in Siewierz, near Sosnowiec, Poland. When the war was over in 1946, he and his mother left Poland across the green border and found themselves in Great Britain. There, finally, the family was reunited. On the 3rd of September 1976 he married the love of his life, Valerie Ann Shannan, who accompanied him through his whole life. The couple did not have any children.

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