For Dr. Gail Loon-Lustig, Chairman of Beth Protea, a recent walk in Jaffa, led to the closing of a circle that began as a young medical student at UCT in the early seventies.
Sitting through a series of riveting lectures on “soft tissue tumours and lymphomas” by pathologist Dr. Len Kahn, Gail was enthralled in learning about Hodgkin`s Disease. “I was completely absorbed in the histology of this tumour which had special features when looked at under the microscope.” Gail became no less fascinated about the life of the famed nineteenth century physician from London after whom the disease was named – Thomas Hodgkin. Hodgkin’s disease (Hodgkin lymphoma) is a type of lymphoma, a cancer that starts in white blood cells called lymphocytes.
Dr. Gail Loon-Lustig at the tombstone of Thomas Hodgkin in Jaffa
What very few people today know but what Gail remembered from Dr. Kahn’s lectures was that Hodgkin who died in 1866 is buried in Jaffa. “He had visited the grave himself and said how moved he was but never revealed its exact location,” which for Gail remained a mystery despite frequent searching. The first effort of Gail’s enquiry was to ascertain how this famed English physician – considered one of the most prominent pathologists of his time and a pioneer in preventive medicine – was buried in Jaffa.
Research revealed that Hodgkin was a great friend and personal physician to Sir. Moses Montefiore (1784-1885). While there could have been few men in Victorian England who presented greater contrasts than the Quaker physician Dr. Thomas Hodgkin and the Jewish financier Sir Moses Montefiore, “they both beyond their many personal talents, shared a deep sense of justice and service to the poor,” says Gail, “and it was in this area of common interest that they toured together five times to the Middle East, including Palestine with the aim of supporting its struggling Jewish community.”
It was on one of these trips in 1886 that Hodgkin, at the age of 68, while visiting at the time of Passover, contracted dysentery and died in Jaffa.
A Walk in the ‘Dark’
Gail made Aliyah in 1976 and became acquainted with Jaffa which she enjoyed walking around with her husband Shamir. All the time Hodgkin’s grave eluded her. It was only in 2014 when she read an article in Ha`aretz about two doctors and an architect who had obtained donations and decided to renovate Hodgkin’s grave in Jaffa that finally provided Gail her roadmap to achieve her goal. She leaned that the grave lies in a small Anglican cemetery at 19 Yefet Street “in the garden of a small house owned and run by Yakov Damkin – a Jewish Messianic evangelist. His story is fascinating, most out of sync with the religious fabric of the country.”
Finally setting her eyes on the grave, Gail reveals how moved she was by the experience of finally after all these years seeing the grave of the man “whom millions today owe the diagnosis of their illness and to think it`s in Israel!”
Hodgkin’s life was devoted to attempts to help the underprivileged and oppressed peoples throughout the world, including North America, Australia, Africa, Syria, the British West Indies and Liberia. He lectured on sanitary measures and stressed the importance of protecting child labourers during the early phase of the Industrial Revolution in England. He cared for the poor, especially Jews in London, and often did not charge fees.
He stressed the importance of adequate oxygen, bathing, and proper disposal of sewage and warned of the dangers of overeating, excessive alcohol use and tobacco use. Here he was way ahead of his time expressing that “smoking encroaches on the freedom and comfort of others.” He was an outspoken advocate for equal education for boys and girls.
Interestingly, Edmund Burke who had written in 1795 that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” had purchased a calligraphy work by Hodgkin’s father.
A corollary to Burke’s statement is the ancient adage that although one cannot solve all the problems of the world, neither is one free to take no part in the effort. Hodgkin took part in the effort and tried to better the lot of his fellow man. The American historian Amalie Kass commented that over and above Hodgkin’s contribution to medicine, he is remembered “because he was so good and tried so hard to do good. Not always successfully; sometimes with a limited sense of reality, but always with pure motives. It is inspiring to meet a true idealist, especially in an era when idealism is often either ignored or disparaged. We admire his consistency and his refusal to sacrifice principle for expediency.”
These are fine words about a fine man and fitting how it all gels in 2015 on the 40th anniversary of Gail’s 1975 UCT medical class reunion and to whom in preparation, she has sent photographs of Hodgkin’s gravestone.
The inscription on Hodgkin’s gravestone reads: “Nothing of humanity was foreign to him”. At least now the location of the grave is no longer foreign to Gail!
