The earliest descriptions of polypoid lesions in the colon date back to the 18th century. Menzel, in 1721, was the first to make reference to a "colonic polyp," when he described what most likely was an "inflammatory polyp" of the colonic mucosa showing evidence of pronounced inflammation and probably originating in the context of ulcerative colitis. [9] The article included a drawing showing a segment of colon with 15 elevated mucosal excrescences found in a 15-year-old boy at postmortem examination, who died of dysentery. Leautaud, Lange, Schmucker, Felizet, and Branca were others to report on similar lesions in the year 1760. [10] The matter of colonic polyps was paid attention again 70 year later, when Wagner [11] in 1832 reported on 20 tiny polyps as a complication of healed ulcers, but the first accurate description was given in 1841 [12] by Stoltz who published the first comprehensive article about rectal polyps in children.

The first patient with adenomatosis polyposis most likely was recorded by Corvisart in the year 1847. [13] He elaborated on hypertrophied features encountered in the anatomy specimen of a 22-year-old male with more than 20 excrescences in the ascending colon. The first extensive accounts of this disease, however, were given by Chargelaigue [14] in 1859, who told of a 16-year-old girl and a 21-year-old man with different numbers of colonic polyps. None of the authors made mention of cancerous changes in such lesions. By 1881, Woodward described lesions in the colon of a 44-year-old female as the result of long-term inflammation and named them as "pseudopolyps." [15]