Alexandru Slătineanu
Managed and enriched by his son, Barbu Slătineanu, it passed into state property during the communist period, when the surviving Slătineanus were exposed to political persecution.
His grandfather Iordache, husband of Princess Safta Brâncoveanu,[1] had translated the works of Metastasio into Romanian, illustrating and printing them at Sibiu in 1797.
At the Collège de France, he audited courses with Théodule-Armand Ribot, who showed the links between psychopathology and pathological states; and at the law faculty, he studied contemporary social and socialist doctrines.
[4] In his spare time, he visited museums, rare bookshops, and walked along the banks of the Seine, with frequent stops at the book stands.
[6] They drew sympathy from Jean Jaurès, Georges Clemenceau and René Viviani, and were allowed to write in local newspapers about the ongoing controversy regarding the Transylvanian Memorandum signatories.
Upon his return home in 1902, he became chief of operations at the experimental medicine department, newly established by Cantacuzino within the University of Bucharest's medical faculty.
[8] From 1907, Slătineanu also wrote in Cantacuzino's left-wing generalist publication Viața Românească; his contributions included stories from the medical, university and social fields.
[4] During the cholera epidemic of September 1911, Slătineanu identified the main channel of disease propagation: from the port city of Brăila to the upriver Piatra Neamț, with the returning timber rafters.
[11] Slătineanu headed the 2nd Army's health service, fighting against cholera on the Dobrudja front (where his son also served with distinction)[1] and among prisoners of war at Galați.
[12] Politically, he supported the Labor Party, a radical socialist group formed by George Diamandy in an attempt to speed up electoral democracy and land reform.
There, the director of the local bacteriological institute adopted his method for preparing an anti-cholera vaccine in large quantities and administering it in a single dose.
The laboratory prepared serums and vaccines for the Romanian, Russian and French armies operating in the area, as well as for the local civilian population and for refugees who had fled from the German-occupied part of the country.
In December 1923, Slătineanu stood up to antisemitism and calls for racial segregation, demanding Gendarmerie cordons between Jewish students their Christian attackers, as well as punitive measures against professors who would not teach desegregated classes.
[16] A year later, following renewed pressures from his Romanian students, Slătineanu authorized a nationalist demonstration to take place on university grounds, but demanded guarantees that it would not lead to violence, and alerted the Gendarmes to stand by.
[18] On the occasion the nationalist philosopher Ion Petrovici alleged that Slătineanu was in part guilty for the riots, having "isolated himself" and "paying no attention to the students' soul.
[1][14] He wrote articles arguing that the high mortality rate in Romania's rural areas was not simply a matter of health, but had to do with lack of education, poverty, malnutrition, with political and administrative causes.
[9] He continued writing for Viața Românească down to 1937,[9] when he also contributed, in Revista Fundațiilor Regale, a piece that sought to revive interest in Arthur de Gobineau and the Aryan race theory.
[9] Having reached the retirement age, he was obliged to leave his position in September 1938, after which he donated instruments, furniture and a valuable library to the Iași bacteriology department.
