Nicolae Blatt

Nicolae Blatt was a Romanian ophthalmologist, surgeon, and medical researcher. He was the founder of the first Romanian journal of ophthalmology, "Revista de Oftalmologie" and he published numerous research papers and monographs in foreign ophthalmology journals. and foreign publications'. He was the official ophthalmologist to the Romanian Royal Court from 1931 to 1947 and during World War II secretly helped Queen Helen of Romania rescue Jewish families from concentration camps. Blatt held the positions of University Professor, Chair of the Clinic and Laboratories of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University Hospital of Timișoara, and the position of Chair of Ophthalmology at the "Institute for Specialization and Perfecting of Physicians" that was part of Carol Davila Medical University in Bucharest. He was a pioneer in research into trachoma, congenital cataracts, modern extracapsular cataract extraction, corneal transplantation and strabismus. During the Cold War the Romanian Workers' Party victimized him because of his past relations, scientific and political views. After the publication of his journal in Bucharest in 1949, he was labeled a "traitor and enemy of the glorious Romanian Popular Republic". He successfully left Romania in 1964. Shortly before his death he was nominated Guest Professor of Ophthalmology, and given a research laboratory, at the Goethe University Frankfurt in West Germany.

Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0