Martin Friedrich
Martin Friedrich, 1894 class photograph
Martin Friedrich was one of the city's most diligent health officers and led the department of health through a significant period of growth. Born in Bavaria in 1855, Friedrich studied philology in Munich and worked in the National Library in Paris, where he also attended the Sorbonne. Friedrich then moved to Meadville, Pa., in 1881 to become a gentleman farmer. After the death of his wife, he took up the study of medicine, graduating from the Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1894. After one year as an intern at City Hospital, Friedrich spent two years doing post-graduate medical work in Vienna, Frankfort and Paris. After returning he became one of the City's district physicians, assigned to care for the medical needs of particular wards in the city. As district physician, Friedrich developed a specialty in smallpox. He was also professor of medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Medical Department of Ohio Wesleyan University, located in Cleveland. Friedrich served as Chief Health Officer for the city for 14 years. After the health department was reorganized in 1914, he became Chief of the Department of Infectious Diseases, one of several sections within the new health department. Friedrich died in 1920.
