Gideon Mer ( he, גדעון מר, 1894,

Panevėžys Panevėžys (; Latin: ''Panevezen''; pl, Poniewież; yi, פּאָנעװעזש, ''Ponevezh''; see also other names) is the fifth largest city in Lithuania. As of 2011, it occupied with 113,653 inhabitants. As defined by Eurostat, the populatio ...

- 22 March 1961

Rosh Pinna Rosh Pina or Rosh Pinna ( he, רֹאשׁ פִּנָּה, lit. ''Cornerstone'') is a local council in the Korazim Plateau in the Upper Galilee on the eastern slopes of Mount Kna'an in the Northern District of Israel. It was established as Gei ...

) was an Israeli scientist whose work was mostly concerned with the eradication of

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or deat ...

. He was the father of

Arna Mer-Khamis Arna Mer-Khamis (20 March 1929 – 15 February 1995) was an Israeli Jewish political and human rights activist. In 1993, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "passionate commitment to the defence and education of the children of Palestine ...

and the grandfather of

Juliano Mer-Khamis Juliano Mer-Khamis ( he, ג'וליאנו מר ח'מיס; ar, جوليانو مير خميس; born Juliano Khamis; 29 May 19584 April 2011) was an Israeli/Palestinian actor, director, filmmaker, and political activist of Jewish and Palestinian ...

Biography

Gideon Mer was born in Lithuania, then part of

Imperial Russia The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. T ...

. He studied medicine in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

.Obituary in the British Medical Journal 1961 (29 July 1961), Volume 2, Issue 5247, page 315, doi: 10.1136/bmj.2.5247.315-

/ref> He aliyah, immigrated to Palestine in 1914. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

he was a medical officer in the

Jewish Legion The Jewish Legion (1917–1921) is an unofficial name used to refer to five battalions of Jewish volunteers, the 38th to 42nd (Service) Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers in the British Army, raised to fight against the Ottoman Empire during ...

, a unit of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...

, and served at Gallipoli, in

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East J ...

, Syria, and

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. After the war he returned to

, a Jewish settlement in the north of Palestine, and his laboratory there eventually became a research station for the study of the

bionomics Bionomics (Greek: bio = life; nomos = law) has two different meanings: * the first is the comprehensive study of an organism and its relation to its environment. As translated from the French word ''Bionomie'', its first use in English was in the p ...

mosquito Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning "gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "lit ...

es and methods of malaria control.

Scientific career

With the opening of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem he joined the Department of

Preventive Medicine Preventive healthcare, or prophylaxis, consists of measures taken for the purposes of disease prevention.Hugh R. Leavell and E. Gurney Clark as "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical and mental hea ...

. In 1927

Israel Jacob Kligler Israel Jacob Kligler (24 April 1888 – 23 September 1944) was a microbiologist. A Zionist and humanist, he was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, educated in the United States and spent most of his career in Mandatory Palestine, but died bef ...

founded the "Malaria Research Station" of the Hebrew University in Rosh Pina, where pioneering field work was carried out relating to the eradication of malaria. Two years later he appointed Dr. Gideon Mer as the station manager and together they published a series of articles on malaria.

During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Mer served in the British Forces with the rank of colonel and was malaria adviser to Middle East Command. After the war he joined the staff of the new school of medicine and became chief malaria adviser to the Ministry of Health in Israel, of which he was acting director in 1956 and 1957. As malaria was brought under control Professor Mer investigated the control of other insects, particularly the

horse-fly Horse-flies or horseflies are true flies in the family Tabanidae in the insect order Diptera. They are often large and agile in flight, and only the female horseflies bite animals, including humans, to obtain blood. They prefer to fly in su ...

, and the Rosh Pinna research station undertook the testing of insecticides and the training of scientists.

References

External links

Gideon Mer at Israel War Veterans League
by Martin Sugarman ( Jewish Virtual Library). Retrieved 21 June 2006.
Obituary in the British Medical Journal 1961 (29 July 1961), Volume 2, Issue 5247, page 315, doi: 10.1136/bmj.2.5247.315-b
*The early contribution of Dr. John Cropper (1864–1916) to the study of malaria in Ottoman Palestine and its eventual eradication. English-language abstract of article by Zalman Greenberg, ''What is the link between the sister of the "Titanic" and the history of medicine in Palestine?'', in "Harefuah", June 2006; 145(6):457-60, 468–9
Gideon Mer Collection
on the Digital collections of

Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library The Younes and Soraya Nazarian Library is a central academic library of the University of Haifa, and one of the largest in Israel. It is also one of the most progressive Israeli libraries in terms of service, collection, physical space, and libr ...

, University of Haifa

Biography

Scientific career

References

External links

See also