Solomon Robert Kagan papers

Solomon Robert Kagan, M.D. (1889-1955)

Solomon Robert Kagan was born in Orany, Russia in 1889 into a family with deep rabbinic heritage. Kagan, however, was drawn to medicine. In the absence of an available formal education, he educated himself during his youth, and in 1912 enrolled in a medical facility in Freiburg, Germany to earn his medical degree.

With the start of World War I in 1914, Kagan returned to Russia and completed his medical studies in 1917 earning his M.D. at the Medical School of Dorpat University in Uriev. He practiced medicine in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution serving as a government district physician in the Crimea, and later as a chairman of the medical examiners committee in Rostov-on-the-Don. He continued in this capacity until he immigrated to the United States in 1922, settling in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Kagan wrote profusely, his works including 8 books and over 1,500 articles on both medical and non-medical subjects. His career can be divided into two phases - the first half writing on Zionism, ancient Hebrew literature, and book reviews; and the second half writing on clinical medicine and medical history and biographies. Kagan became known as an eminent medical historian, biographer, and bibliographer. His books include Jewish Contributions to Medicine in America (1934), American Jewish Physicians of Note (1942), and Jewish Medicine (1952). His clinical writings deal mostly with his experiences with a typhus fever epidemic witnessed in Rostov-on-the-Don. Kagan wrote in five languages: English, Russian, German, Yiddish, and Hebrew.

After the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, Kagan became an active proponent of many causes including the fight against the internationalization of Jerusalem. He also petitioned hard for a research medical library in Israel funded in cooperation by American Jews. Up until his death in 1955, Kagan was an active member in the medical community; holding the position of treasurer in the American Physician Fellowship Committee (APFC) and associate editor of The Medical Way magazine.