Dr. med. Erwin Pulay
- Vienna, 26.12.1889
- London, 30.08.1950
- Member since 1925
- Escaped to Great Britain in 1938
- Wien
- Dermatologist
Erwin Pulay was born into the family of the merchant Ignaz Pulay and his wife Lina, née Zeissl, in Vienna. He grew up alongside his sister Alice, born in 1887 (who later married into the Ehlers family), and his younger brother Lothar Pulay (born in 1891). Lothar Pulay was killed in action as a soldier in World War I in 1914 at the age of 22.
Education and Places of Work
Pulay attended the kaiserlich-königliche Staatsrealschule (royal imperial secondary school) in his home town and began studying medicine at the Vienna Medical Faculty in the winter semester of 1910/11, graduating with the state examination in March 1917. He received his doctorate in August 1917. Pulay had been working at the Imperial and Royal Serotherapeutic Institute in Vienna with the pathologist and biochemist Ernst Pribram in 1916 during his studies. In Vienna, Erwin Pulay married Ida Königsberger, born on July 24, 1891, in July 1917. Their daughter Ulrike Elisabeth was born in 1921, and their son Georg in 1923.
After graduating, Pulay specialised in dermatology. He was particularly dedicated to the study of allergies. He published extensively on a wide range of issues in dermatology, including metabolic pathology in skin diseases and constitutional factors in the pathogenesis of dermatoses.
Escape to Great Britain in 1938
Erwin Pulay was able to flee to London in April 1938 with the support of the British intelligence officer Thomas J. Kendrick. Kendrick was a “passport officer” in Vienna, who tried to help endangered Jews to escape following the invasion by the German Wehrmacht. He provided Pulay with documents and an entry visa for Great Britain. A previous attempt to leave Austria illegally via the Swiss border had failed. Erwin and Ida Pulay had already sent their two children ahead to Great Britain to stay with sponsors on the ground prior to March 1938. Ida Pulay followed their two children and her husband to Great Britain later in 1938.
Erwin Pulay was freed from internment as an enemy alien in Great Britain in November 1939. Pulay continued his publishing work in Great Britain. He published Allergic Man, Susceptibility and Hypersensitivity in 1945, which attracted new attention because of its considerations in the context of constitutional theory.
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to Jessica Pulay, England, Erwin Pulay’s granddaughter, for her important input on Erwin Pulay’s biography and publishing activities. We would also like to thank her for kindly providing us with Erwin Pulay’s portrait photographs.
I would like to thank my colleague Dr. Cornelie Haag of Dresden for her research at the Austrian State Archives and the Vienna City and Provincial Archives
Article by Harro Jenss, MD, Worpswede, Germany. As of 3.6.2022, supplemented 13.5.2026 and 3.6.2026
Translation by Rachel Hinterthan – Nizan. As of 21.7.2022
Sources and Further Reading
Sources
