In the year 1940, the predominant cause of death of women in the childbearing age was cervical cancer. A Greek immigrant, Dr. George Nicholas Papanicolaou originally started his academic career learning the reproductive cycles of cavy. He working in the anatomy department at Cornell University after moving to the United States. He decided to change his aim of the study to human physiology and started to work with gynecological pathologist Dr. Herbert Traut. While collaborating together at Cornell University, they managed to publish a book entitled Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer by the Vaginal Pap Smear in 1943. This importance collaboration explained how normal and abnormal vaginal and cervical cells could be observed under a microscope and how they can be categorized. The straightforward procedure is now well-known as Pap smear or test which became the gold standard in the early detection of cervical cancer or cervical cancer screening
