One of the many foreign nationals who came to
\nthe Romanian Principalities to contribute to the modernization process was also
\nphysician Iuliu Barasch. Born into a family of Jews in July 1815 in the city of
\nBrody in the former Kingdom of Galicia, back then part of the Austro-Hungarian
\nEmpire, today in present-day Ukraine, Barasch furthered his studies in Berlin
\nand Leipzig, but chose to return to Romania to practice medicine here. What he
\ndid was so much more: he helped set up modern medical institutions. He
\npopularized the sciences through his publications. He edited textbooks and
\nactually taught medicine. He set up a clinic which later developed into a
\nchildren’s hospital, thus laying the foundations of Romanian pediatrics. He
\nalso supported the Jewish community here. He served as a quarantine physician
\nin C\u0103l\u0103ra\u0219i over 1843-1847 and in Dolj County over 1847-1851. Despite all that,
\nIuliu Barasch remains virtually unknown today to general audiences, including
\namong scholarly elites. His works are now being published and translated in
\nRomania, as most were written in German. Historian \u0218tefan
\nPetrescu gave us an overview of Iuliu Barasch’s career.<\/p>\n
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\n
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What do we know about Iuliu Barasch? He was a
\nman of numerous talents, someone with an interest not just for medicine, but
\nfor other fields as well. He was what we call a true scholar. He could have
\nbeen anything he wanted. His parents wanted him to become a rabbi, but that’s
\nnot what he wanted. Then they wanted him to become a merchant, and actually
\nsent him to Moldova to learn the trade, unfortunately to no avail. So they sent
\nhim to study abroad, and this is where Iuliu Barasch would shine. He first
\nstudy in Germany, then he came back, showing great potential for a scientific
\ncareer. He was also a writer, an accomplished scholar, not just a physician. He
\nwas interested in the life of his community, in the fate of the Jews. This was
\na time when Jewish emancipation in the Romanian Principalities was on the rise,
\nand he was one of the iconic representatives of this movement. He also capitalized
\non building momentum created by the 1848 Revolution, followed by the 1859
\nUnion. This was the rule of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, which created numerous
\nopportunities for the Jews. Iuliu Barasch was in the middle of it all, but his
\nlife was cut short. After a lifelong of hard work, Iuliu Barasch passed away at
\nonly 40 years of age, leaving behind huge volumes of works. He worked as a
\nphysician in the public sector, which was no small thing for a Jew. He also
\ntaught in public schools, including at the Saint Sava High School in Bucharest.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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\n
<\/p>\n
Iuliu Barasch achieved all that over a
\nrelatively short period of time, as he died in March 1863, at only 47 years of
\nage. Back then, Romanian society was in dire need to people like Iuliu Barasch
\nto help modernize the country, and Iuliu Barasch knew that. He was particularly
\nknown for helping Wallachia bridge the development gap compared to other
\nWestern countries. He also served as a press correspondent for a
\nGerman-language newspaper. And that’s not all. To medical historian Octavian
\nBuda, Iuliu Barasch brought to the Romanian Principalities the spirit of
\nenlightenment, albeit with some delay, something which the region lacked back
\nthen.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\n
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He brought out a series which has become a
\nreference for the field of history and popularizing sciences, Natura, which he
\npublished at a time when Western countries were following the same trend. He
\nmade commendable efforts to write in Romania. He paid attention to every detail
\npertaining to modern procurements in the field of medicine, and he stood out as
\none of the first people to signal something was wrong with cholera. He
\nsuspected the transmission method was not by direct contact. The issue was
\ndisconcerting. There were two running theories at odds with each other – on the
\none side those who argued in favor of direct contact, while the other camp
\nspoke of foul air that was infectious, which you had to avoid at all costs.
\nIuliu Barasch managed to examine all these things, and what he did was typical
\nof any exponent of moderate enlightenment – he didn’t discard these popular
\npractices from the very start as nonsensical, irrational and primitive. No. He
\nthought there is a collective experience that could be instrumental in
\nformulating a rational medical discourse based on causes, that sought the
\ndevelopment of health policies based on prevention and education. And this was
\nsomething truly remarkable. He was part of this specific strand of Jewish
\nenlightenment which in the West was best represented by Moses Mendelssohn. He was
\nunder the influence of Kant, as he went to Leipzig to enroll in a course
\ndelivered by a professor who was a disciple of Immanuel Kant at K\u00f6nigsberg.
\nTherefore, this was the sort of intellectual legacy that Barasch had. In Berlin
\nhe met with the great medical experts. He went to college with people who were
\nconsidered the founder of modern pathology, the heavyweights of international
\nanthropology in the late 19th century. Despite all that, he returned
\nto Romania, and it is reasonable to ask if he actually missed on greatness.
\nIt’s hard to answer, because he graduated with a paper that is considered one
\nof the first theses that systematize modern dermatology at the highest
\nscientific level. He could have easily stayed in the West, practicing in the
\nemerging field of dermatology, and he could have been featured today in
\nstandard textbooks of the history of dermatology. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Corint Publishers have recently started to
\ndecrypt Iuliu Barasch’s biography by translating the volume called Iuliu
\nBarasch. Pioneering medicine in Wallachia, a work that brings together a
\nnumber of his medical articles. (VP)<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iuliu Barasch was one of the great scholars of the mid 19th century in Romania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":123226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[45718,116703,38315,116704],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-621910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-iuliu-barasch","tag-jewsih-community-in-romania","tag-romanian-principalities","tag-science-and-medicine"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n