A historian (also of medicine) should accept the values and canons of the studied culture, including medical ones, as their own. As Florian Znaniecki pointed out in his works, they should be the researcher’s highest authority. This means that the researcher should deviate from evaluating the ideas and practices of the studied culture from their own perspective. The category of minimal cultural imputation developed by Wojciech Wrzosek shows that it is not an easy process. However, the application of the subjective-rational perspective to the interpretation has already become an obvious approach. An open and much less obvious problem is the role of the historian of science when they venture to make comparisons between past and present scientific cultures. By doing so, do they still remain a historian, or – by undertaking such comparisons and evaluations – do they abandon the role, assuming the position of, for example, methodologist? The author of the article outlines the possibilities of separating these roles, presenting the attitude of a ‘methodologist’ who searches in the past for the roots and theoretical justifications for contemporary paradigms of their discipline, using the latter to evaluate the past. However, the possibility of a non-evaluative dialogue between the cognizing culture and the cognized culture is also shown, where the former also includes the specialist knowledge of a contemporary researcher interested in the past of their discipline. The historiography of a given science appears here as a record of the self-knowledge of a given generation of researchers – as their self-reflection. As Jan Pomorski calls it, a researcher assuming such a role appears as homo metahistoricus in their field of study.

Using the sources written by Johannes Baptista Montanus (1489–1551), by his students, and the existing historiography, the article aims to determine what role this Italian physician played in the development of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, to what extent he is rightly considered the creator of clinical medicine, who were his mentors, and what were the methods of diagnosis and treatment he employed. Montanus was a professor at the University of Padua, and he has earned an ineffaceable place in the history of this university, where medicine was taught at a high level. At the same time, he worked as the head of St. Francis hospital. He was known for combining theoretical and practical knowledge in teaching at university. This method has become a permanent element of the teaching of medicine in Europe. He discussed the patient’s symptoms, then made a diagnosis, and recommended appropriate therapy directly at the patient’s bed, where the so-called consilia were held. This scheme of diagnostic and therapeutic procedure was named after him the ‘Collegium Montani’ and found many supporters among students who made notes while standing by the patient’s bed. The Consilia were later printed, and thus the treatments recommended and used by Montanus can be analyzed. Walenty Sierpiński of Lublin (also known as Valentinus Lublinus, b. 2nd half of the 16th century– d. before 1600) was among a large group of Montanus’s students. His merits include collecting, organizing and then publishing his master’s lectures. Considered to be Montanus’s most important work, Consultationum medicinalium Centuria prima, was published by Walenty of Lublin in Venice in 1554 (ex officina Erasmiana), and it contains one hundred pieces of medical advice given to one hundred patients. A few years later, a continuation of this work (Consultationum medicinalium Centuria secunda, ed. by Johannes Crato, Venice 1559) was published, containing further one hundred recommendations. Montanus was a promoter of physical examination as a method of obtaining knowledge about the patients’ health. He was regarded as a follower of Galen, Rhazes, and Avicenna and published critical studies on their treatment methods.

The article presents a case study in which a simple, practical observation significantly changed the perception of basic phenomena regarding the mechanism of cell functioning, and thus was able to change the existing theory. This observation drew attention to the fact that the extract obtained from the dry plant substance with the use of pure alcohol, after distilling off the solvent, does not give a dry concentrated extract, and the viscous residue cannot be dried by distillation. This is a phenomenon that practically every phytochemist has encountered since the inception of this field of knowledge. It turned out that the explanation for the described phenomenon is the presence of eutectic solvents. Eutectic solvents are formed by mixing specific solid components, which liquefy without the addition of solvents, thanks to a significant lowering of the melting point of the mixture compared to the melting points of the starting materials. Although more than a hundred years have passed since the description of the above phenomenon, in the field of natural sciences, eutectic solvents have been treated as a curiosity for a long time, while in medical sciences – and more specifically in pharmacy – they were considered an inconvenience causing pharmaceutical incompatibilities. In fact, they are essential for the functioning of cells, enabling plants to develop frost resistance, being responsible for the ability to cryopreserve animal tissues, or allowing the dissolution of substances which are otherwise insoluble inside the cell in either the lipid layer or the aqueous part of the cell juice. The described discovery, made in 2011, allowed for a leap improvement in the understanding of the functioning of living cells.

This article aims to discuss the nomenclature of medical tools in Book Four of Onomasticon by Julius Pollux and to assess the usefulness of this work as a source of knowledge in research on the history of medicine. The article contains an original translation that allows for a detailed analysis of the given passage. Onomasticon is an ancient lexicon and the only surviving work by Pollux who lived in the 2nd century CE and represented the Second Sophistic. In Onomasticon, he compiled ancient Greek vocabulary on various topics, including terminology relating to medical tools. The layout of the chapter is not accidental. The author divides the terms into several groups: cutting and mechanical tools, dressings, bloodletting devices and physician’s office equipment. Sometimes he indicates the authors – mainly comedy playwrights – from whom he resourced the chosen vocabulary. The terminology was also drawn from lexicons. The vast majority of phrases mentioned by Pollux was used in a medical context in other literary sources and medical treatises, for example by Hippocrates and Galen. Words that appear in a medical context only in Onomasticon may result from the author’s error or can be new evidence for the studies on ancient medicine.

The article aims to depict the socio-professional position of pharmacy employees in the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939) and the factors which influenced their status. In the interwar period, reforms of the pharmacists’ education system were implemented, the office of the provincial pharmaceutical inspector was introduced, and bills were adopted to settle the particulars of the profession. Thus, the foundations were created to depart from the former semi-artisanal character of pharmaceutical practice towards an academic and independent profession. This had a positive impact on the social and professional position of pharmacy employees. In theory, they were equal to their employers and representatives of other liberal professions. However, the reforms had awakened their ambitions and expectations. The reality was different, especially during the great economic crisis (1929–1933/35). The salaries of professional pharmacy personnel, especially in the eastern provinces, were not high. Instead of sufficient remuneration, people were still offered – as in the 19th century – housing and board at a pharmacy. The burning problem was unemployment, and the employers did not respect the working time regulations. All this frustrated the employees. Their presumably high socio-professional status was not always reflected in real life.

It is predominantly accepted in the historiography of European medicine that, apart from the differences in education, there was a division of competences between physicians educated at universities and barber-surgeons trained in the guild system in terms of their theoretical background. Regardless of the former stereotypes – dating back to the 19th century – relating to the Church-imposed restrictions in teaching surgery at universities, it is believed that the actual differences in terms of competences must have influenced the scope of the undertaken therapeutic activities. A different education model and the predominance of either theoretical or practical knowledge among representatives of these groups resulted in different treatment methods and a different perception of the causes of the disease. Physicians with mainly theoretical knowledge are often put in opposition to practising barber-surgeons. While it seems that the reluctance to bloody operations (sometimes articulated by the surgeons themselves) was a reason for the limited involvement of physicians in the barber-surgeon practice, it is difficult to clearly indicate the factors that would prevent surgeons from dealing with “non-operational” treatment. The article attempts to answer the question to what extent the then-existing differences in education and legal restrictions influenced the actual division of therapeutic tasks and the functioning of various medical professions as viewed from the patient’s perspective.