Sarphati, Coronel and Jacobs
With the emergence of a small Jewish elite following the legal emancipation of 1796, the Jewish physician Samuel Sarphati (1813-1866) became prominent. He took his medical degree in Leiden and in 1842 founded the Nederlandsche Maatschappij tot bevordering der Pharmacie [Dutch pharmaceutical society] to train pharmacists. He founded many institutions, which, except for the first Amsterdamse Handelsschool, the Amstel Hotel, the Paleis voor Volksvlijt, and the Nationale Hypotheekbank, were all dedicated to healthcare. One organization, for example, arranged for rubbish collection, while the Maatschappij voor Meel- en Broodfabrieken [Society of flour and bread factories] manufactured bread at a low cost but under good sanitary conditions.
Samuel Senior Coronel (1827-1892) was another well-known Jewish physician and is considered the founder of social healthcare in the Netherlands. His areas of concern included school absenteeism, day-care centres, sanatoria, nutrition, hygiene, and working conditions at workplaces and factories. He wrote extensively about working conditions at diamond-cutting and polishing factories. Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929) became widely known as the first female physician in the Netherlands. She worked hard to improve working conditions for working women and was active in the campaign for women’s suffrage.
Involvement in boards, associations, universities and society at large
Jewish medical practitioners figured prominently in the Nederlandsche Maatschappij tot bevordering van de Geneeskunst [Dutch society to promote medical practice], de Nederlandse Vereeniging van Huisartsen [Dutch association of family physicians] (now the Landelijke Huisartsen Vereniging), and the Vereniging van Nederlandse Vrouwelijke Artsen [Association of Dutch women physicians]. In 1940 several professors at the University of Amsterdam Faculty of Medicine were Jewish. Other universities had Jewish instructors and professors on their staff as well. The exact number of Jewish medical students at the time is unknown. Figures are available for 1930, when 1.7 percent of the total Dutch population over 20 was Jewish. Among university graduates, 2.6 percent was Jewish, while 3.8 percent of those with medical degrees were Jewish. A relatively large share of the Jews in the Netherlands attended university, and a considerable share of those who did specialized in medicine.
In addition to all well-known physicians, medical professors, and physicians on boards and associations, there were of course many ‘regular’ Jewish physicians who practised medicine from their home.
World War II and thereafter
In March 1941 the Nazis prohibited Jewish physicians from treating non-Jewish patients. Some Jewish doctors lost all their patients overnight as a result. The anti-Jewish measures affecting all Jews in the Netherlands progressively isolated the Jewish physicians, of whom many were deported and killed. J.H. Coppenhagen has written a book about 208 Jewish physicians who were killed during the war. The book is edited and features an introduction by M.J. van Lieburg and is entitled Anafiem Gedoe’iem. Overleden joodse artsen uit Nederland 1940-1945. The physicians who perished are described in individual biographies, which the makers of the Monument have used with gratitude. The introduction to the book sheds light on the role of Jews in Dutch medical practice and research. The notes to this introduction feature extensive source listings, including diaries of Jewish physicians who survived the war.
Additional reading:
J.H. Coppenhagen, Anafiem Gedoe'iem. Overleden joodse artsen uit Nederland 1940-1945 (Rotterdam 2000) (Edited and with an introduction by M.J. van Lieburg).
M.H. Gans, Memorboek. Platenatlas van het leven der joden in Nederland van de Middeleeuwen tot 1940 (Baarn 1978, 5th edition), 720-721.