Gordon, Mary Sylvia

GORDON, Mary Sylvia, M.B., S.B. Medical Practitioner. Born Telz, Lithuania, 28th August, 1890, daughter of Moshe Mordecai (Motte) Gordon. Her grandfather, Eliezar Gordon, was head of Telzer Yeshiva. Educated in Warsaw, Poland, and at Durham University, England. Came to South Africa 1917. Became first woman resident medical officer, Johannesburg General Hospital, and first woman lecturer in Medicine at Witwatersrand University Medical School. Subsequently entered private practice. During World War I rendered war service in England at the Sutherland General Hospital, Marpeth Mental Hospital, Nottingham, and Pendlebury Hospital, Manchester; during World War II served with the S.A. Forces in the S.A.M.C. and attained the rank of Major. Upon demobilisation in 1946 became medical officer to Wizo and Hadassah institutions in Palestine, and during the period when the Jewish illegal immigrants to Palestine were detained in Cyprus, she served as medical officer of the Jewish wing of the British Hospital in Cyprus. On the establishment of the State of Israel, she became consultant Physician to the Israeli Army and, on demobilization medical officer at Rosh Ha-Ayin Immigrants Camp, Israel, retiring from this post in 1958, she returned to S.A., where she joined the medical staff of Baragwanath Native Hospital in Johannesburg and two years later took charge of the physical training department at Tara Hospital. Tara Hospital. Address: Skyline Hotel, Hillbrow, Johannesburg.