Leibowitz, Joshua O.
LEIBOWITZ, JOSHUA O.
LEIBOWITZ, JOSHUA O. (1895–1993), medical historian and Hebrew scholar; cousin of Yeshayahu and Neḥama *Leibowitz. He was born in Vilna. Leibowitz combined his studies of medicine at Heidelberg University with talmudic studies. After serving as head physician at a sanatorium in Bad Homburg, he immigrated to Palestine in 1935 and was appointed medical director of the Arza Sanatorium near Jerusalem. During the 1948 War of Independence he was head physician of Schneller military camp, and later senior physician at the Kupat Ḥolim in Jerusalem. In 1959 Leibowitz was appointed clinical associate professor and head of the division of the history of medicine at the Hebrew University.
He published many papers on medicine in general, but from 1930 onward his main interest was in the history of medicine. Until 1957 he devoted himself almost exclusively to Jewish topics in historical medicine but subsequently wrote also a history of medicine in general, with special emphasis on the evolution of cardiology. His History of Coronary Heart Disease (1970) is the first historical monograph on the subject.