Wednesday, May 20, marked 38 years since the repose of Dr Ana Aslan, founder of gerontology and geriatrics, medical fields dedicated to treating the effects of ageing. She established in Bucharest the world’s first institute devoted to this speciality and treated some of the most prominent names in global politics and show business.
Ana Aslan was born on 1 January 1897 in Brăila, the youngest of four children of Mărgărit Aslan, a descendant of an old Armenian family, and Sofia, who came from Bukovina. She lost her father at the age of 13, after which the family moved to Bucharest.
Studies and the beginning of success
She studied medicine during the First World War, at a time when medicine was still a profession practised almost exclusively by men. During the war, she cared for patients in military hospitals behind the front lines near Iași.
After returning to Bucharest in 1919, she worked with the great neurologist Gheorghe Marinescu and, in 1922, graduated from the Faculty of Medicine.
Out of 32 candidates, she achieved the highest score in the examination for a physician’s post and became Romania’s first female cardiologist and professor of clinical medicine.
In 1949, she became head of the Physiology Department at the Institute of Endocrinology in Bucharest, marking the start of her extensive research into the treatment of ageing.
The scientist demonstrated that procaine (novocaine) possessed rejuvenating and anti-ageing properties, laying the foundations for the famous Gerovital H3 range, which was later presented at international medical congresses.
Pioneer of anti-ageing treatments
In 1952, at her initiative, Romania established the world’s first institute of geriatric medicine dedicated to the elderly. Elderly people were treated there free of charge for research purposes. In 1964, the World Health Organization recommended the institute as a model of organisation for similar institutions worldwide.
In 1958, after being tested on thousands of patients, Romania officially approved Gerovital H3 and Aslavital, treatments later used in 154 countries — nearly the entire world.
Among the personalities treated with products developed by Dr Ana Aslan were Salvador Dalí, Charlie Chaplin, Aristotle Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Indira Gandhi, Marlene Dietrich, former French President Charles de Gaulle and many others.
At the Institute of Geriatrics, Dr Ana Aslan showed constant concern for elderly people abandoned by their families, whom she admitted without charging fees. She also housed and cared for elderly individuals persecuted by the communist regime after their homes had been confiscated or after they had been imprisoned.
Although the international licensing of her treatments generated 17 million dollars for the Romanian state, the communist regime accused her of causing losses of 1.5 million lei because of these elderly patients — some of them considered “politically undesirable” — whom she had housed and treated free of charge.
Ana Aslan, however, demonstrated that these patients had contributed to her research and that this was why she had not charged them. She was acquitted six months before her death at the age of 91. She reposed on 20 May 1988 and was buried at Bellu Cemetery.
She chose Romania
The scientist was a pioneer in world medicine at a time when female physicians and researchers — especially those from communist countries — were often viewed with distrust.
Although she could have emigrated at any time to work in the “free world”, she chose to remain in Romania. Her discoveries brought significant income to the country, and her research remains an invaluable scientific legacy.
Despite the hardships she faced in Romania, Ana Aslan proved that serving one’s community can also mean becoming an outstanding specialist, contributing to the development of one’s country and supporting the nation in which one was born and formed.
Source: Rador
Photo: Agerpres
