Dr. Sidney J. Kaplan, Dermatologiat Who Had A Passion For Art, 86
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Doctor Sidney Kaplan, a dermatologist with practices in Lake Forest,
Illinois, and Waukegan, Illinois, as well as an inventor, artist and
art collector who spoke several languages, died of congestive heart
failure Wednesday, February 25, 2004, in his Wilmette, Illinois, home,
at the age of 86.
To his family, friends and colleagues, Dr. Sidney J. Kaplan was the
perfect example of a Renaissance man, with interests and skills that
extended beyond his decades-long career as a dermatologist.
"He was a very fine dermatologist," said Dr. Sam Solomon, his friend
and medical partner. "But he was a remarkable man who knew so much
about music, art, literature and theater. It was encyclopedic, but he
was never boastful. He was such a complete person, one that touched
you deeply."
In 1966 he was granted a patent for his invention of a mattress pad
that became known as the "egg crate" foam mattress because of the
peaks and valleys on its surface. The grooved design was particularly
useful in preventing bedsores.
Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, he attended the Art Institute on
a scholarship as a young boy and began collecting prints of the French
caricaturist Honore Daumier. He recently contributed more than 300
prints from his collection to the Block Museum in Evanston.
Although he chose medicine over art for his career, he continued to
draw throughout his life.
"He did sketches wherever he went," said his wife, Vivian. "He was a
marvelous, fast-drawing person. He did wonderful caricatures. That was
his attraction to Daumier."
Two years after the death of his first wife, Evelyn, he met Vivian, a
psychologist, while serving as her tour guide during a visit to a
school where he was a board member. They married in 1967.
"The second time we saw each other, we knew we would get married," his
wife said.
But they learned after they began dating that their meeting had been
seemingly predestined a generation earlier.
"My mother came here at 14 on a ship from Russia and she was cared for
by a woman, who was 18 years old," his wife said. "That woman was his
mother."
Dr. Kaplan received his medical degree from the University of Illinois
at Chicago after receiving his bachelor's at its Urbana-Champaign
campus.
He then joined the Army as a medical officer. After his discharge as a
major, he veered away from his original goal to become a surgeon
because the frostbite he had suffered to his feet during World War II
made it difficult to stand for long periods, his wife said. He instead
chose dermatology and over the years developed a forte in industrial
dermatology.
"At one time, he visited all the plants and factories in Waukegan and
Kenosha," Solomon said. "He wanted to see what their workers did, what
chemicals they were exposed to. His patients would say they worked on
`xyz machine.' He would know what that was and could cut to the quick
in ferreting out information."
A voracious reader who especially liked history and Russian writers,
he also spoke French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, German and Yiddish.
He and his wife traveled extensively, often to Third World countries
where he mentored and worked with local physicians and nurses.
He taught dermatology at three Chicago medical schools and was a
president of the Lake County Medical Society.