As the main tasks of the 18^th-century Russian medicine were the support of the army and navy, and the protection of the empire from massive diseases, the regular research of local medical phenomena and resources was not clearly distinguished. The present paper attempts to reveal the ways in which medical knowledge was produced and communicated on the example of crude oil exploration by a Prussian physician in Russian service, Johann Jacob Lerche (1708–1780). Despite the fact that both his wide-ranging medical activities in different areas of the Russian empire and his extensive written heritage drew only fragmentary attention from scholars, they reflect the physician’s expertise in the research of naturalia which he manifested while performing his professional duties. Crude oil was one of the most remarkable mineral wonders of the Pre-Caspian region which Lerche visited twice (1732–1735, 1745–1747). On the basis of his three published accounts, which contain information on petroleum qualities and its practical application, the author investigates how the Baku crude oil, a natural object, was reinvented as a medical resource by an 18^th-century state physician in the Russian empire. It is done through the consideration of the processes of world discoveries in the Age of Enlightenment, and the indigenous practices of the oil use. Finally, the significance of the author’s professional position as a state physician appears to have influenced the argumentation of curative qualities of petroleum and the advantages of its location.

In 1928, when the Bureau for the Project of Amelioration of Polesie (a large marshy area in the eastern part of interwar Poland) began its field studies, environmental concerns were low on the list of its priorities. A year later, this brought the Bureau into serious conflict with the State Council for Nature Protection. When both institutions eventually came to terms with their contradictory ambitions and vaguely-defined competences to enter into substantial cooperation, the idea of reserving a large area of marshlands as a natural park came into being. In 1932, Stanisław Kulczyński, a botanist leading the Bureau’s peat bog research team and also a Council member, proposed protecting an area of roughly 100,000 hectares between the Lwa and Stwiga rivers. The future park would encompass most types of landscape typical of Polesie and, fortunately, most of its swamps, forests, dunes, and peat bogs were barely touched by human activity. The hydrogeological feature of the selected area safeguarded its immunity to the potential consequences of the amelioration works, if such were undertaken in any of the surrounding areas. This paper explores how the location and extent of the protection of the park were negotiated within the entangled networks of social, economic, and political agendas of national policy in inter-war Poland. The efforts to coordinate the pro-nature policy in Polesie with similar actions undertaken by the Soviets beyond the nearby border are also covered.

According to the provisions of the Government Commission of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment of 1817, local authorities in the Kingdom of Poland (both clergy and laity) were obliged to organise, twice a year, exams in their elementary schools. Extant reports from these exams are an important source of information – especially in relation to specific villages and schools – on the functioning of these schools and the changes observed in elementary education in the Kingdom of Poland. This article is an analysis of the contents of the reports from exams that took place in ten elementary schools operating in the parishes of the Olkusz deanery in the years 1821–1824. The reports are kept in the archives of the Metropolitan Curia in Krakow.

The information contained in the exam reports allows us to conclude that education in the Olkusz deanery struggled with many difficulties such as lack of school premises, and the reluctant attitude of the local community who opposed the idea of schools as such and was unwilling to finance them or send their children there. There is an interesting issue of assessing the work of teachers and the benefits of learning for the students in those schools. The exams show that even the good work of teachers did not guarantee the progress in students’ skills and abilities, and lack thereof was probably a result of their irregular attendance at school.

In 1887 Ksawery Branicki founded a zoological museum. The private institution was to protect Warsaw’s natural collections against possible confiscation by the Russian authorities during anti-Polish repressions. The museum existed for 32 years until it was passed to the Polish nation in 1919, and the National Museum of Natural History was created. Jan Sztolcman managed the Branicki Museum throughout its entire existence. This museum was one of the most important zoological collections in Europe, especially famous for its rich ornithological collections from South America and Asia. The article analyses available, today very fragmented, sources of knowledge about the history of the Branicki Museum, and also presents the hitherto unknown correspondence of Jan Sztolcman with Benedykt Dybowski on the exchange of specimens between the Branicki Museum and the Museum of the University of Lwow.

This study aims to analyse 19^th-century handbooks of prescriptions in terms of ophthalmic drug technology. The following publications were selected: Jan Bogumir Freyer’s Formulare czyli nauka o sztuczném przepisywaniu lékarstw (Formulare, or on the Art of Writing Prescriptions) – published in Warsaw in 1816, Fryderyk Kazimierz Skobel’s Wykład farmakomorfiki i katagrafologii (Lecture on Pharmacomorphics and Catagraphology) – published in Krakow in 1851, and Antoni Kryszka’s Receptura czyli nauka pisania recept i przyrządzania podług nich lekarstw (Compounding, or on the Art of Writing Presciptions and Preparation of Medicines on their Basis) – published in Warsaw in 1865. In the nineteenth century, ophthalmic medications could be found in three kinds of forms: a dry collyrium (xerocollyrium), an ointment-like collyrium (myrocollyrium), and a liquid collyrium (hygrocollyrium). Ophthalmic medications in solid (powders) and semi-solid (ointments) forms were to contain very finely powdered medicinal substances. The ointments were also required to be non-irritant. Drugs in liquid form (e.g. decoctions, solutions, drops, mixtures) were recommended to be made in accordance with the principles of preparing a given form of the drug. They could be used for instillation, washing or so-called eyebathing, and as eye compresses.

Professor Józef Pieter (1904–1989) was a Polish psychologist, philosopher, pedagogue, logologist, researcher, and lecturer at the Jagiellonian University, University of Łódź, University of Warsaw, University of Silesia, Pedagogical University in Katowice, and Central Institute of Physical Education – Academy of Physical Education in Warsaw. He was born in Ochaby in Cieszyn Silesia. He graduated from the Jagiellonian University, where he studied philosophy and history and where he also obtained his doctoral degree. In 1945, he was habilitated at the University of Poznań. He is the author of over 200 scientific publications, including over 40 books, in the field of pedagogy and psychology. An educator of many teachers and scientists. He supervised over 20 doctorates.

Professor Józef Pieter was a person with outstanding merits for the development of higher education in Upper Silesia. He was aware that Upper Silesia did not have a university – an institution necessary for the intellectual development of the population – which could contribute to strengthening the Polishness of the inhabitants. He was fond of this idea throughout his life. After World War II, he became involved in the organisation of scientific life in Upper Silesia. For several years he held, among others, the post of the rector of WSP (Pedagogical University) in Katowice. His actions, despite many unfavourable circumstances resulting from the existing political situation, eventually contributed to the establishment of the University of Silesia in Katowice. The following article aims to present Prof. Pieter’s profile – mainly his merits for the organization of higher education but also his scientific achievements, which in many respects were both innovative and at a world-class level.