Prof. Dr. med. Leonard Polak Daniels
- The Hague, 31.03.1872
- The Hague, 14.05.1940
- Member since 1925
- Groningen
- Specialist in internal medicine
Leonard Polak Daniels was born in The Hague in 1872 as the son of Ansel Polak Daniels and his wife Elise, née Marchand.
Education and Places of Work
Polak Daniels studied medicine in Leiden from 1892, where he passed the state examination on 8 February 1900. He spent a year at the Institute of Pathology at the Charité in Berlin under Rudolf Virchow and David P. von Hansmann in 1900. After having returned to Holland, he first worked as a laboratory assistant for Johann Veit in the Clinic for Gynaecology and Obstetrics and then as a volunteer assistant for Willem Nolen at the Medical Clinic of Leiden University. Polak Daniels moved to the Municipal Hospital in The Hague as an intern in 1903. In addition to his training in internal medicine, he qualified in pathology and worked as a clinical pathologist. He headed the departments of internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Municipal Hospital in The Hague from 1917.
Polak Daniels was appointed Professor of Internal Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Groningen in July 1918. He was appointed head of the Medical University Clinic the same year and university rector in 1936/37.
Together with Abraham van den Bergh and Isidor Snapper, Polak Daniels organised the 8th meeting of the Society for Digestive and Metabolic Diseases in Amsterdam in 1928. He was co-editor of ‘Acta Medica Scandinavica’ and was on the editorial board of ‘Nederlands Tijschrift voor Geneeskunde’ as well as ‘Geneeskundige Bladen’.
After 1933
When many Jews had to flee from Germany to Holland after 1933, Leonard Polak Daniels and his wife tried to help the refugees as well as they could.
Polak Daniels and his wife Catharina Pleijte committed suicide on 14 May 1940, after the German Wehrmacht had invaded the Netherlands four days earlier.
