Flora Pollack

Flora Pollack was born in Baltimore on September 5, 1865, a daughter of Uriah Pollack. She was a medalist at the Woman’s Medical College (WMC) where she graduated in 1891. She became an intern at Blockley Hospital from 1891 to 1892. Dr. Pollack studied at Johns Hopkins under Dr. William Osler. 

In 1893, she and several of her fellow WMC alumnae were in charge of creating a tablet for the World’s Fair, to be placed in the Maryland Building (now located at the zoo in Baltimore). She was active in the alumnae association for the school for many years. In 1894, she became a member of the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland.

Dr. Pollack spent time in Europe studying medicine in Germany and in 1895, an announcement appeared in the Baltimore Sun saying that she had returned to Baltimore and established an office at 1112 Eutaw Street, which was also her home. 

Over the years, she lectured on embryology, obstetrics, and physical diagnosis at the Women’s Medical College. She was an attending physician at the Evening Dispensary for Working Women in South Baltimore, and a visiting physician at the Home for Mothers and Infants, and the Female House of Refuge. She was also a resident staff physician and an assistant in gynecology at Johns Hopkins beginning in 1900. For several years served as president of the Daughters in Israel, a working girls' home.

If the accounts of the day in the Baltimore Sun are any indication, there are more than 200, Dr. Pollack was active in many aspects of the community, including lecturing on a wide range of topics, mostly health-related; serving on committees, especially ones having to do with the labor conditions and Jewish-related causes; writing letters to the editor; contributing to articles; buying art at a local exhibitions; and much more. A long account of her witnessing her father’s suicide is written up in the paper as a prelude to his obituary.  

Dr. Pollack was also a suffragette and was active in rallying and speaking for women’s voting rights. An article in Sun stated that “practically all our women physicians are suffragists. Among these are Dr. Florence Sakin, Dr. Mary Sherwood, Dr. Lillian Welch, Dr. Flora Pollack, Dr. Elizabeth Hardon, Dr. N.V. Mark, Dr. Anna Abercrombie and Dr. Henrietta Thomas.

Dr. Pollack lived and practiced medicine at her home on Eutaw Street in Bolton Hill, but she also had a two-story house with a three-car garage on the Chesapeake Bay in Anne Arundel County with a water-frontage of more than 100 feet.

Dr. Flora Pollack died in Baltimore at her home on May 27, 1938. She is survived by a sister, Mrs. Jeannette Masbach of Stevenson. Burial will be in Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery. Another sister, Dr. Ida Pollack Bernstein, also a graduate of WMC, died in 1928. She was one of the first group of physicians to take the license to practice medicine examination in Maryland.