The Jewish Health Professionals of Cincinnati

In studies of the significance of the Cincinnati Jewish community within the wider context of American Jewish history, the development of the Reform movement, and Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise’s oversight in establishing the iconic Plum Street Temple, often receive priority. Yet if we focus solely on the religious and architectural history of the Cincinnati Jewish community, we risk overlooking the major role the community played in the medical history of the city, region, and indeed, the wider world.

The Cincinnati Jewish community created an early—perhaps the very first—Jewish hospital in the US. It was at Cincinnati’s Jewish Hospital that new, pioneering psychological methods of treatment for children and young adults were implemented, while at the University of Cincinnati Medical School, Albert Sabin made his contribution to the eradication of polio.

In December 1854, the Jewish Hospital was founded “for the purpose of alleviating the indigent poor sick of the Jewish faith.” Serving as a hospice, the hospital did not even have a full-time physician on staff. It was not until 1890, when a completely new Jewish Hospital building was dedicated, that the institution transformed into a center for treatment and healing, and the staff included multiple physicians, nurses, and support personnel.

Changes in hospitals during the late nineteenth century were accompanied by a transformation in medical education. Prior to the Progressive era there was no consistent process to achieve professional status, and many physicians were autodidacts. The culmination of the desire to promote more consistent and better medical education was the 1910 publication of the Flexner Report, written by Abraham Flexner and sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation. Medical schools were advised to tighten admission and graduation requirements, train students in the latest scientific methods, and provide practical instruction in a clinical setting, specifically a hospital. While the University of Cincinnati Medical School embraced the guidelines of the Flexner Report, the Jewish Hospital had already become one of the places where those specific medical reforms were being implemented. For example, in 1900, the Jewish Hospital organization chart listed the following medical specialties: Surgical, Gynecological, Neurological, Eye-Ear-Nose-Throat, Children (later renamed Pediatrics), Obstetrical, and Dental.

By the late nineteenth century medical education in the Jewish community of Cincinnati centered around two institutions: the Jewish Hospital and the University of Cincinnati Medical School. But by the early twentieth century, an interesting set of patterns had developed in the medical education of Cincinnati’s Jewish professionals. Many of those who received their degrees from the University of Cincinnati Medical School would then travel to Europe for their post-doctoral training before returning to the Queen City to establish practices, many associated with the Jewish Hospital.

At a time when many medical schools in the US placed strict limits on the number of Jewish students, the Cincinnati school had a Jewish dean in the person of Alfred Friedlander. A native of Cincinnati, Friedlander had followed a path that was common amongst Jewish physicians. After graduation from the University of Cincinnati Medical School, Friedlander went to Europe to continue his medical studies. Upon his return he was named the first staff pediatrician of the Jewish Hospital in 1899. He would go on to teach at the University of Cincinnati Medical School, to serve as dean of the college (1934–1939), and to become chief of staff at Cincinnati General Hospital (1937–1939).

Just as modern methods of medical training were developing in the early twentieth century, so too the field of psychiatry was becoming mainstream. In these early days of the field, however, few therapists applied their concepts to children. The United Jewish Social Agencies of Cincinnati (UJSA) was one group that advanced the notion that mental health issues were important in pediatric care. In 1916 the UJSA was concerned that children were being committed to long-term incarceration as mental patients without the benefit of medical evaluation and care. To address these concerns, the UJSA created and funded a Committee on Juvenile Research that was tasked with examining the causes of and potential treatments for “feeblemindedness, delinquency, and kindred conditions.” As the Committee’s use of the term “delinquency” might suggest, during the early twentieth century mental health issues were often tied to notions of race, gender, and socio-economic status. Social scientists often linked urban life to various forms of “degeneration” that were manifested in children, often those from a lower social order who did not have access to fresh air and proper hygiene. What made the Cincinnati social workers atypical was their insistence that many ailments could be treated, if properly diagnosed. The Committee on Juvenile Research recommended establishing the Psychopathic Institute to provide proper diagnoses and find an alternative to long-term institutionalization.

In 1922 the Jewish Hospital listed the Psychopathic Institute as a new department in its organization chart. Headed by Dr. Louis A. Lurie, a recent University of Cincinnati Medical School graduate, this specialized institute was a marked expansion in a new direction, even though the Jewish Hospital had always been committed to pediatric care. The Institute operated in conjunction with the University of Cincinnati Medical School, which was developing a program in mental hygiene with a special emphasis on juveniles.

The association between the University of Cincinnati Medical School and the Jewish community, especially in the form of the Jewish Hospital, would remain strong for decades.

Frederic Krome is a professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, author of The Jewish Hospital & Cincinnati Jews in Medicine (The History Press, 2015), and co-author, with John Fine, of Jews of Cincinnati (Arcadia Press, 2007).