Victor Gomoiu (April 18, 1882 – February 6, 1960) was a Romanian surgeon, anatomist, folklorist and medical historian, who served as Minister of Health and Social Protection in 1940.

Noted before 1910 for his work in descriptive surgery and pathology, focusing on the treatment of tuberculosis, genital diseases and tumors, he soon became one of the main contributors to medical historiography and bibliography.

He became a professor at the University of Bucharest, an expert for the League of Nations, and, after distinguished service in World War I, a recipient of the Legion of Honor; additionally, he served for 22 years as president of the International Society for the History of Medicine, of which his wife Viorica was also an active member.

He returned to serve in two consecutive far-right governments, but, during World War II, emerged as a protector of the Romanian Jews, denouncing the policy of deportations to Transnistria.

Alongside Dimitrie Gerota, Ernest Juvara, and Victor Papilian, he continued Ionescu's work in descriptive anatomy as well as, in some instances, physical anthropology.

[3] In 1906, Gomoiu published in Bucharest the first volume of his Istoricul Societăței Studenților în Medicină ("History of the Medical Students' Society"), with a plate by Ary Murnu; also that year, his study on eye disease among the rural population saw print at Târgu Jiu.

[4] Affiliated with the left-wing agrarian current, or Poporanism, he established in that city the literary magazine Șezătórea Săteanului ("Villager's Sitting"), joining an editorial office which also included George Coșbuc and G. Dumitrescu Bumbești-Jiu.

Topics included meningoencephalitis, cerebral atrophy, facial nerve paralysis, fibrous tissue neoplasm, lipoma, the anatomy of the endothelium, corneal transplantation, skin grafting, dental implants, hysterectomy, various types of cysts and "rare tumors", and talus bone expulsion.

[11] A winner of the Manoah Hillel scholarship, that year and the next also saw his first contributions as a medical bibliographer and librarian, with catalogues of entries for the University of Bucharest's graduation papers in medicine.

He modernized the institution, systematizing records, constructing a laboratory, planting a grove of cluster pines, and furnishing a small facility for the study of regional climatology and radioactivity.

[15] In 1913, a second-class surgeon at Filantropia Hospital, Gomoiu published a piece on "the radical treatment of vaginal hydrocele" in the French journal Lyon Chirurgical, and his opening lesson on "small surgery" (Mica chirurgie).

The same years saw his many conferences at the Surgical Society printed in several editions, alongside separate studies of skin cancer, the sympathetic nervous system in the abdomen, gas gangrene of the thorax, and gastrostomy techniques.

[20] The former essay, reissued in 1940 as Biserica și medicina ("Church and Medical Science"), showed Gomoiu as a deist, philosophically inspired by Isaac Newton and Giovanni Battista Morgagni.

He personally oversaw the pledge drive, collecting private donations and public money from the National Bank, the Ministry of Health and Căile Ferate Române, offering free medical services to the donors.

He was briefly arrested on charges of lèse-majesté,[34] alongside far-right politicians suspected of having conspired with the Iron Guard, which had just assassinated Prime Minister Ion G.

[35] Gomoiu was also investigated for an alleged plot to assassinate Carol, but he rejected the charges, and insisted that he only wanted Queen Helen to be allowed back in the country.

His account was backed by the Union of Reserve Officers, which staged a public protest; its influence, insiders speculated, explained by Gomoiu was treated leniently in court.

[40] By that moment in history, Carol had established his National Renaissance Front dictatorship, and, in 1940, appointed Ion Gigurtu to lead a government that included some Iron Guard members.

[41] In this capacity, and also as a member of the Crown Council, he was marginally involved in the major international crisis which saw the cession of Romanian land to the Soviet Union and the Axis Powers.

As a Swiss journalist reported at the time, Gomoiu, "a man so nice that he could not imagine that the Jews are so persecuted", personally visited the Jewish detainees and convinced himself of their mistreatment, before contacting the queen.