Katarzyna Pękacka-Falkowska

Unlike in other large cities of Royal Prussia, i.e., Gdańsk/Danzig and Toruń/Thorn, the intra-city legislation regulating the local market for medical, surgical, apothecary, and midwifery services in Elbląg/Elbing have been largely overlooked by scholars. Additionally, the history of healthcare and pharmacy organization in Elblag remains a little-explored topic in both Polish and foreign historiography. The article aims to analyse the hitherto unknown 17th c. ordinance for physicians, apothecaries, and barbers issued by the Elbląg city council, and provides the trustworthy primary text (scholarly edition) to researchers.

The main aim of the introductory paper is to present the scope and objectives of all essays presented  in the volume. We also examine the major theme of that issue of “Medycyna Nowożytna” and survey similarities and differences between early modern medicine, natural history and philosophy of nature in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The second part of the paper presents those excerpts from the second volume of N.J. Gerlach and Ch.G. Fischer Itinerarium, which describe people, places and events related to the teaching of medicine and natural history in Amsterdam, Haarlem and Utrecht.

In early modern times, numerous inhabitants of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, both townsmen and representatives of the nobility and magnatery, visited the United Provinces. Many of the burghers also studied at the University of Leiden or other Dutch universities and gymnasia. In the autumn of 1727, Nathanael Jacob Gerlach from Gdańsk/Danzig matriculated at the Academia Lugduno-Batava. The Danziger, together with his tutor, Christian Gabriel Fischer, took a few-year educational journey through Western countries. The testimony of their several months’ stay in the Netherlands is the 2nd volume of Fischer’s handwritten Itinerarium. The selection presents those excerpts from the 2nd volume of the diaries which describe people, places and events related to the teaching of medicine and natural history in the 18th century Netherlands. The fi rst part of the paper focuses on Leiden, the second one – on Amsterdam, Haarlem and Utrecht.

In the second part of the 17th century and the first part of the 18th, Gdańsk was at the centre among places on the map of collectors in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, especially regarding to natural history. It was the place of activities of Naturalien-Cabinets of such natural scientists as Christoph and Johann Christoph Gottwalds, Jacob and Johann Philipp Breynes, Jacob Theodor Klein, or Daniel Gralath, where rare objects belonging to three regni naturali from all parts of the globe were presented. One od the oldest Gdańsk collections was the Musaeum Gottwladianum. Its heiers sold part of its items to Petersburg Kunstkammera of tsar Peter I. The article introduces profiles of the creators of the mentioned collection – Ch. and J. Ch. Gottwalds and the most important sources presenting its character and scope. Also, selected elements of collections of interest were discussed.

The paper comments the Gdańsk/Danzig Hebammen-Ordnung issued in 1781 by the Naturforschende Gesellschaft and presents a scholarly edition of its appendixes. The Danzig Research Society was established in 1743, and in the late 70’s of the 18th century, at the height of popular and medical enlightenment (Volks- und medizinische Aufklärung), it engaged itself in making improvements in local healthcare system. One of the planned effects of numerous activities of the Society in the above mentioned context was both reform and development of local midwif ery, among others creation of a position of the Hebammen-Meiste and establishing a list-of-duties for Danzig sworn midwives and their instructor (respectively supervisor).

In the early modern period, in various European countries, both Roman Catholics and Protestants provoked a new version of an old myth of “manmade pestilence”. The myth originated in Antiquity, and the term pestilentia manufacta was coined by Seneca in his “De Ira”. Yet, it was only the XVIth century that it started to evolve and rapidly spread throughout Europe. The myth provoked plague-inspired hatred and persecution that was aimed against people from different social echelons. Generally, the persecuted were the poor employed by local authorities as “low functionaries” during epidemics, above all, gravediggers. Nevertheless, priests, barber-surgeons, and merchants could also be considered plague-spreaders or plague-smearers. This article examines selected cases of presumed plague spreading in Western European cities in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries and three cases from XVIIIth century Poland, two of which have so far been unknown to scholars