Jovan Apostolović, MD, the first Serbian medical doctor - life and work achievements

Jovan Apostolović was born between 1730 and 1735, in Buda and died in 1770 in Novi Sad. He was the first Serbian physician who acquired the title of a medical doctor with his doctoral thesis. After his graduation from the Halle Medical School in 1757, he defended his doctoral thesis there, titled “How Emotions Affect the Human Body”. This thesis, considering the time of its publication, was the first in the history of medicine that studied psychosomatics taking into consideration the influence of emotions on human organism. Upon his arrival to Novi Sad, in 1759, Apostolović had founded his medical practice as an only graduate physician in the town. When, after its outbreak in Belgrade, Srem and Banat, the plague threatened to spread to the Novi Sad area, he was appointed the town’s doctor in 1763, but was resolved from this position in 1765, since the Magistrate was not able to handle the pressure from the barbers, catholic priests and German population of the town. After losing this position, he continued with his medical practice in Novi Sad, till 1770 when he died of tuberculosis.