[Dr. Moshe Sherman--the first otolaryngologist in Eretz-Israel: 100 years since his arrival]

Abstract

On 4.8.1911 Dr. Moshe Sherman landed at the port of Jaffa. He was the first otolaryngologist in Eretz-Israel and for one year he was the only specialist in the country. Dr. Sherman was born in Nikolayev (Russia) in 1881. He started his medical education in Odessa, continued in Berlin, graduated in 1907 at the University of Dorpat (Estonia) and pursued postgraduate studies in otolaryngology at Moscow University. He settled in Jaffa, started a private practice and soon became a famous specialist. He volunteered at the Jewish hospital in Jaffa--"Shaar Zion", and twice a year spent several weeks in Jerusalem seeing patients and performing small operations. On January 1912 Dr. Sherman, together with another 5 physicians, laid the foundations for the first doctors' organization in Israel: "The Medical Society of Jaffa and Jaffa district". In 1918 Dr. Sherman was elected consultant at the Hadassah Hospital in Tel Aviv, and in 1932 a department for ear, nose and throat diseases was established there under his management. He was the founder and first chairman of the Ototaryngology Society in Eretz-Israel, and in 1935 was elected the chairman of the Jewish Medical Association in Eretz-Israel (later--its honorary president). He was the initiator and founder of the "World Fellowship", and the Editor in Chief of 'Harefuah' and "Michtav Lachaver". Dr. Sherman was the author of numerous papers related to his specialty and to the history of Jewish organizations in Eretz-Israel and, later, in the State of Israel. Dr. Sherman died in Tel Aviv on July 17th 1969.