Kligler, Israel Jacob
KLIGLER, ISRAEL JACOB
KLIGLER, ISRAEL JACOB (1889–1944), bacteriologist. Kligler was born in Kamenets-Podolski, Ukraine, and was taken to the U.S. in 1901. He went to Ereẓ Israel in 1920 and worked with the *Hadassah Medical Organization. In 1921–22 he undertook a year's experimental fieldwork on malaria on the basis of a special grant he received from Justice Louis D. *Brandeis. From 1923 to 1926 he was director of the malaria research unit financed by the American Joint Distribution Committee, and from 1926 until his death was director of the department of hygiene at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Kligler was a leading personality in public health, preventive medicine and malaria control in the mandatory era in Palestine. He was chairman of the health department of the Va'ad Le'ummi, adviser on malaria to the *Jewish National Fund, and consultant to the Hadassah Medical Organization. He founded the Microbiological Society and the Malaria Research Station at Rosh Pinnah. Kligler's scientific papers covered bacteriology, virology, immunology, hygiene, nutrition, epidemiology, and the control of infectious diseases. His main interest, however, was malaria, and his Epidemiology and Control of Malaria in Palestine (1930) dealt with the disease as it existed in the country at that time, giving a detailed epidemiology, prophylaxis, treatment, and control of the disease, and a description of the biology and bionomy of the local anopheline vectors. He published over 100 scientific studies.
[Zvi Saliternik]