Crohn's disease is a 55% chance the other will too. The incidence of Crohn's disease is increasing in Europe and in newly industrialised countries. For example, in Brazil, there has been an annual increase of 11% in the incidence of Crohn's disease since 1990. Inflammatory bowel diseases were described by Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682–1771) and by Scottish physician T. Kennedy Dalziel in 1913. "Ileitis terminalis" was first described by Polish surgeon Antoni Leśniowski in 1904, although it was not conclusively distinguished from intestinal tuberculosis. In Poland, it is still called Leśniowski-Crohn's disease (). Burrill Bernard Crohn, an American gastroenterologist at New York
The Gifts of the Body the patients and the caregiver. The book contains ten short stories, the titles of each being associated with "gifts" which are various functions of the body, both physical and emotional: sweat, wholeness, tears, skin, hunger, mobility, death, speech, sight, hope, and mourning. The caregiver experiences each "gift", as he/she deals with patients who have AIDS, showing the different shared relationships in each case. Each patient is a distinct case, differing in terms of age, financial situation, attitude toward the illness etc., showing the reader that this disease affects all types of people. The book is written in the "no-frills style"