John A. Sampson

John Albertson Sampson (August 17, 1873–December 23, 1946) was a gynecologist who studied endometriosis.

[1] Sampson was born near Troy, New York and graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1899.

While endometriotic cysts had been described before - notably by W.W. Russell in 1898,[2] it was Sampson who studied the disease systematically, described the clinical manifestations, and contributed to our understanding by proposing, in 1921, that endometriosis - a term he coined - is a process caused by the escape of menstrual debris including endometrial tissue that escapes retrograde through the fallopian tubes into the pelvis.

Thus, alternative theories have been developed, including the concept of endometriosis that starts in the pelvis de novo from stem cells.

Even today, these and other theories coexist, as the cause of endometriosis remains a subject of debate.