35 Facts About Victor Gomoiu

Victor Gomoiu was a Romanian surgeon, anatomist, folklorist and medical historian, who served as Minister of Health and Social Protection in 1940.

Victor Gomoiu founded several hospitals and edited medical journals, setting up a collection of medical instruments which became the basis of a national museum in Craiova.

Victor Gomoiu became a professor at the University of Bucharest, an expert for the League of Nations, and, after distinguished service in World War I, a recipient of the Legion of Honor; additionally, he served for 22 years as president of the International Society for the History of Medicine, of which his wife Viorica was an active member.

Victor Gomoiu returned to serve in two consecutive far-right governments, but, during World War II, emerged as a protector of the Romanian Jews, denouncing the policy of deportations to Transnistria.

Victor Gomoiu had been posthumously rehabilitated by the 1980s, but his work was only fully recovered after the Romanian Revolution of 1989.

Victor Gomoiu attended primary school in his native village, followed by Traian High School in Turnu Severin from 1893 to 1900.

In 1906, Victor Gomoiu published in Bucharest the first volume of his Istoricul Societatei Studentilor in Medicina, with a plate by Ary Murnu; that year, his study on eye disease among the rural population saw print at Targu Jiu.

Victor Gomoiu took his first trip outside the country in 1908, visiting states from Austria-Hungary to Great Britain.

Victor Gomoiu published steadily, and lectured at the Medical Students' Society and the Surgical Society.

Victor Gomoiu soon lost his father to pancreatic cancer and found it hard to provide for himself, accepting jobs for which he was overqualified.

Victor Gomoiu modernized the institution, systematizing records, constructing a laboratory, planting a grove of cluster pines, and furnishing a small facility for the study of regional climatology and radioactivity.

Victor Gomoiu began experimenting with thalassotherapy, light therapy, and the use of medicinal clay.

In 1913, a second-class surgeon at Filantropia Hospital, Victor Gomoiu published a piece on "the radical treatment of vaginal hydrocele" in the French journal Lyon Chirurgical, and his opening lesson on "small surgery".

The author of Hommage a la France et aux medecins francais, Victor Gomoiu was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1922.

Victor Gomoiu issued Istoricul presei medicale din Romania, and the second volume of Istoricul Societatei Studentilor.

In late 1927, on a visit to northern Europe, Victor Gomoiu was impressed by Danish education.

Victor Gomoiu's article covering Danish libraries, and in particular the one Nikolaj Tower, saw print in Cuvantul daily and was taken up in Scoala Noastra.

Victor Gomoiu became a trusted supporter of King Ferdinand I, managing the charity set up by his daughter, Princess Ileana.

Victor Gomoiu was one of the specialists who assisted Ferdinand during his losing battle with colorectal cancer.

Victor Gomoiu personally oversaw the pledge drive, collecting private donations and public money from the National Bank, the Ministry of Health and Caile Ferate Romane, offering free medical services to the donors.

Victor Gomoiu designed much of the building, modifying sketches by the architect Gheorghe Simotta.

Together with his friend Mihai Canciulescu, Victor Gomoiu edited Acta Medica Romana magazine from 1928 to 1948.

Victor Gomoiu founded the ISHN-affiliated Romanian Medical History Society, which held monthly meetings from 1929 to 1948 and was placed under Princess Ileana's patronage.

Victor Gomoiu represented Romania on the League of Nations committee for physical education, inspecting the military school at Joinville-le-Pont.

Victor Gomoiu served as private physician to Queen Helen, estranged wife of the new king, Carol II.

Victor Gomoiu was briefly arrested on charges of lese-majeste, alongside far-right politicians suspected of having conspired with the Iron Guard, which had just assassinated Prime Minister Ion G Duca.

Victor Gomoiu was investigated for an alleged plot to assassinate Carol, but he rejected the charges, and insisted that he only wanted Queen Helen to be allowed back in the country.

Victor Gomoiu's account was backed by the Union of Reserve Officers, which staged a public protest; its influence, insiders speculated, explained by Gomoiu was treated leniently in court.

In May 1936, Victor Gomoiu was called upon by the Iron Guard to be a defense witness for Viorel Trifa, Alecu Cantacuzino, and other Guardista accused of conspiracy against the state.

Victor Gomoiu was president of the ISHM from 1936 to 1940, having successfully defeated with Maxime Laignel Lavastine, who became his bitter adversary.

Victor Gomoiu had by then established inside the international body a Cantacuzene Commission, named after Ion Cantacuzino.

Raicovicianu, Victor Gomoiu published the bibliographic corpus Histoire du folklore medical en Roumanie.

Shortly after the establishment of a communist regime in December 1947, Victor Gomoiu was removed from teaching.

Victor Gomoiu was arrested, together with tens of others former dignitaries, on the night of May 5,1950, and detained with them in the basement of the Ministry of the Interior, Palace Square.

Victor Gomoiu's memoirs, recovered from the secret archives of the Securitate, were only published in 2006.