MEYER GOTLIB

MEYER GOTLIB (b. July 5, 1866)

            He was born in Miroslav (Miroslavas), Suwalk region, Poland.  He received a traditional Jewish education, later graduating from a secular high school in Suwalk.  In 1892 he received his medical degree from Warsaw University.  He worked in various Warsaw hospitals, later becoming director of the Warsaw University Clinic.  He took part in the Russo-Japanese War.  He was a Jewish community leader in Warsaw.  He learned of the harsh hygienic conditions of the Jewish masses and began to popularize the problems of sanitation and hygiene in the Yiddish language.  He published articles on this topic in Hatsfira (The siren) and Haasif (The harvest).  He also published a series of brochures on popular medicine under the general title of Zayt gezunt (Be well!) (first aid, tuberculosis, stomach and intestinal illnesses, nervous disorders, venereal disease, and the like), which appeared in a number of editions.  Over the years 1912-1914, he was a regular contributor to the weekly Der yudisher hoyz-doktor (The Yiddish house doctor) in Warsaw.  He spent the years of WWI in Russia, where he ran assistance work for the homeless.  He also wrote for Russian medical periodicals and published in Russian a biography of Perets Smolenskin.  Among his books: Populere algemeyne higyene (Popular general hygiene) (Warsaw, 1908), 70 pp.; Zayt gezunt, five parts (Warsaw, 1911).

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1.