Traian Săvulescu was a Romanian biologist and botanist, founder of the Romanian School of Phytopathology, member and president of the Romanian Academy.
Early life and education
The third child of Petrache and Maria Săvulescu, he attended primary school and secondary school in Râmnicu Sărat and the Costache Negruzzi College in Iași, where his teacher, Teodor Nicolau, directed him towards the study of botany. After graduation in 1907, he enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine in Bucharest. The next year, he enrolled at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Natural Sciences, from which he graduated in 1912. After graduation, he embarked on a Ph.D. at the Botanical Institute in Bucharest, which he obtained in 1916 with a doctoral thesis entitled Studiul asupra speciilor de Campanula L. din secția Heterophyllae ce cresc în România. The work was well received and noted with magna cum laude. Săvulescu became the first doctor of botany at the University of Bucharest.
Career
Between 1912 and 1921 he worked at the Botanical Institute of Cotroceni and in 1918 he was appointed lecturer in the Department of Plant Morphology and Institute of Systematic Botany in Bucharest. For a quarter of a century, he divided his work between the College of Agriculture at Herăstrău Park, where he taught Systematics and Phytopathology, and the Plant and the Agricultural Research Institute of Romania, founded by Gheorghe Ionescu-Sisești. He organized a network of warning stations across Romania to combat vinemildew. In 1929 he founded a laboratory for the study of insecticide-fungicide substances, the laboratory subsequently becoming the national Plant Protection Service. He also initiated the first phytosanitation laws and quarantine control in Romania. In 1928 he founded the academic journalStarea fitosanitară a României, published annually, which covered matters of plant protection. On 25 May 1936, Săvulescu became a correspondent member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences. In June 1938 Săvulescu featured in a documentary film of an expedition in the Danube Delta, exploring the local flora. That same year, he married Alice Aronescu, a colleague who after graduating from the University of Bucharest, had obtained a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Between 29 November 1946 and 30 December 1947, Săvulescu served as Minister of Agriculture under Prime MinisterPetru Groza and was Vice President of the Council of Ministers. In 1948 he became an active member and secretary general of the Romanian Academy. In 1948, with the nationalization initiated by the communist regime, the Academy ceased to exist as a private institution and was reorganized under the name of the Academy of the Romanian People. Săvulescu was appointed president of this new organization during the Romanian People's Republic by decree of the Presidium of the Great National Assembly. He remained its honorary president until his death in 1963. In April 1955, during an election meeting of the Academy, Traian Săvulescu came to the defence of former members excluded in 1948 for their previous collaboration with authoritarian, anti-Semitic or fascist governments. On 23 March 1956, as a gesture towards the abolition of the Academy of Sciences of Romania and its integration into the People's Republic Romanian Academy, Săvulescu, as President of the Academy, organized the inaugural meeting of the Association of Romanian Scientists. Săvulescu was a member of several foreign academies, including those from Hungary, Germany, and New York. He was also editor of the journal Buletin de la section scientifique de L'Académie Roumaine and member of the editorial boards of the journals Phytopathologische Zeitschrift, Berlin and Sydowia''.
