Aaron Friedenwald

Artist: Louis P. Dieterich; Oil on canvas

Aaron Friedenwald was the youngest son of Jonas Friedenwald; born in Baltimore Dec. 20, 1836; died there Aug 26, 1902. He entered a business career, but devoted his spare time to the study of mathematics, general literature, and German, French, and Hebrew.

At the age of 21, he began the study of medicine at the University of Maryland. He graduated in the spring of 1860, and soon afterward sailed for Europe to continue his studies at Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and Paris. He devoted himself especially to ophthalmology throughout his professional life. In 1862, he returned to Baltimore, and entered the practice of medicine. 

In 1873, he was elected to the professorship of diseases of the eye and ear in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Baltimore, a position he held until his death. He soon became a prominent member of the local medical societies and president of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland (1889-90); and was a member of the medical staffs of a number of hospitals.

One of his most important medical achievements was the calling into being of the influential Association of American Medical Colleges in 1890. He was among the most active workers in all the local and national Jewish charities and other associations, was a founder, and for thirty-three years a director, of the Baltimore Hebrew Orphan Asylum, chairman of the Baron de Hirsch committee in Baltimore, president of the Baltimore branch of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and one of the founders and vice-president of the Jewish Theological Seminary Association. In 1898 he visited the Holy Land to study the conditions of the Jewish colonies.

He was a successful lecturer, and made important contributions to medical literature. His publications of general interest are a number of addresses on the study of medicine, the history of hospitals, Jewish immigration, and the Jewish colonies in Palestine, the most important of them is “Jewish Physicians and the Contributions of the Jews to the Science of Medicine” (“Publications, Gratz College,” vol. i., 1897).