| Born: | 11-28-1874 |
| Faculty: | Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: | Expelled teacher |
Albert BLAU (born on November 28th, 1874 in Vienna, dies on January 4th, 1954 in New York) was private lecturer ("Privatdozent") in obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical School of the University of Vienna in 1938.
He was persecuted in times of Nazism as a Jew lost his position and was removed from office and expelled from university on April 22nd, 1938.
He was the second of five children of Dr. Sigmund Blau (1867-1928, factory owner) and Bertha Blau, née Löwy (1854-1928), passed the school-leaving examination ("Matura") in 1892 at the Franz-Josef-Gymnasium in Vienna's 1st district ("Stubenbastei") and then studied medicine at the University of Vienna where he also graduated and obtained his "Dr.med.univ."degree on July 20th, 1899.
In 1899/1900 he was an assistant physician at the Garrison Hospital No. II in Vienna, and in 1900/1901 he was a volunteer physician at the University Surgical Clinic in Heidelberg. Univ. Women's Clinic in Vienna, where he was an assistant in 1902-1910, and habilitated as a private lecturer in obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna in 1909.
He was a member of the Society of Physicians in Vienna, the Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Vienna, the German Gynecological Society, and was also a member of the Austrian League of Nations and later a member of the New York County Medical Society, the Medical Society of the State of New York, and the American Medical Association.
Albert Blau produced numerous publications on problems of gynecology and obstetrics, including On an Ovarian Tumor of Peculiar Form. On the dilatation of the cervix by means of Bosse's instrument (1903), On the success of vaginal uterine extirpation for carcinoma (1906), On the origin and spread of tuberculosis in the female genital tract. First medical aid in gynecology and obstetrics (1909), The relations of the female genital organs to the liver (1912).
Albert Blau had his own practice in Vienna's 9th district, Ferstelgasse 4, and until 1938 was a gynecologist in the Rothschild Hospital of the Jewish Community and director of the Outpatient Clinic for Women's Diseases in the Rudolfinerhaus Hospital in Vienna.
He had to flee Vienna and managed to emigrate to Paris, France in time. After receiving his U.S. visa in Paris on November 8th, 1938, he emigrated on December 8th, 1938 from Boulogne Sur Mer on the SS Nieuw Amsterdam to the U.S. where he arrived in New York City, NY on December 18th, 1938. He then settled in the New York City borough of Queens in Elmhurst, where he continued to live and work as a gynecologist. He became an American citizen in February 1944.
Dr. Albert S. Blau died at the age of 79 on January 4th, 1954 in Elmhurst, New York City, NY.
Lit: Archives of the University of Vienna, Personnell files S 304.83, disciplinary files MED S 21.59; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/E-uReang/VVSt/VA/27212; Bundesarchiv Berlin R/58/9602; NY State Journal of Medicine 1954, 423; Brigitte LORENZSONN, Personalbibliographien von Professoren und Dozenten der I. und II. Universitätsfrauenklinik und der III. geburtshilflichen Klinik in Wien im ungefähren Zeitraum von 1905–1930, ungedr. Diss. Univ. Erlangen-Nürnberg, Nürnberg 1973, 55–58; MERINSKY 1980, 24f.; BLUMESBERGER 2002, 129f.; UB MedUni Wien/van Swieten Blog; www.genteam.at; www.geni.com; www.ancestry.de.
Herbert Posch
