At the turn of 1806/07, French troops fought a series of battles and skirmishes with the Russian army in northern Mazovia. Wounded and sick soldiers were taken to fi eld hospitals, often organized just outside the area of military operations. Determining the locations of such institutions allows for the verifi cation of the burial sites and, at the same time, for the commemoration of both the soldiers who died there and the staff employed.

Clays, because of their medicinal properties, have been intuitively used in healing in all parts of the world since ancient times. The discovery of medicinal clay deposits used in Silesia – terra sigillata Silesiaca – dates back to 1550. The deposits were described in 1586 in a work published in Nuremberg entitled Judieum de terra sigillata strigoviensis. The author of the publication was the discoverer of Silesian healing clays – a Renaissance physician and geologist from Strzegom – Johann Schulz (1531–1604), known as Johannes Montanus. This discovery was also mentioned in 1583 by Andreas Berthold, an alchemist and empiricist, who was not a physician, in his work entitled Terrae sigillatae nuper in Germania repertae and Caspar Schwenckfeld (1563–1609), a spa physician from Cieplice-Zdrój, in his monograph from 1600, entitled Stirpium & Fossilium Silesiae Catalogus. Indications for using clay from Silesian deposits were also described in a work from 1737, entitled Rariora naturae & artis, item in re medica; oder, Seltenheiten der Natur und Kunst des kundmannischen Naturalien-Cabinets, wie auch in der Artzeney-Wissenschafft by Johann Kundmann (1684–1751), a physician of the von Hochberg family from Wrocław. By 1580, Silesian clay was already known as a remedy against dog rabies in the state of Hesse. In 1618, it was listed in the pharmaceutical work entitled Pharmacopoetia Londinensis, alongside clays from the Mediterranean region. According to the descriptions, this clay helped the population in 1633 as a prophylactic measure to control the plague epidemic and the mass extinction of cattle in Upper Silesia.

Hospital care in Vilnius has a long tradition, going back more than 300 years. Some people claim that one of the fi rst care and treatment facilities in Central and Eastern Europe was located in Vilnius. That institution was the local St. Jacob’s hospital, which after more than 90 years of operation, i.e. in 1799, received that name. The same hospital continued operation until the year 2005, when a decision was made to fi nally close it down. By mid 19th century, due to increasing demands in hospital care, as well as increased social needs, many other similar institutions were soon established, among them the “Sawicz” hospital and the Jewish hospital, which continued to operate and grow into the times of the Second Polish Republic. Władysław Zahorski wrote about the origins of the fi rst hospitals in Vilnius already in the interwar period, however his focus was on the early days of local treatment facilities. The article aims to describe the history of the oldest municipal hospitals in Polish Vilnius in the interwar period, up until the year 1939. The foundation of the article is established by using historic archives of the City Hall that are currently located in the Lithuanian Central State Archives (Lietuvos Centrinis Valstybes Archyvas) and in the Special Collection of the General Medical Library, together with old calendars, periodicals, and studies on the subject.

In the early 1920s, tuberculosis, trachoma and ringworm (favus) were recognized by the Society for the Protection of Jewish Health (Общество адравоохранения Евреев, OZE) and the American Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC). Joint) for the three most pressing health problems of the Jewish community in Central and Eastern Europe, the most urgent of which, according to these institutions, was the fi ght against ringworm - a fungal disease of the scalp, sometimes also of the skin of the hands and nails, caused by the Achorion (Trichophyton) Scheonlenii fungus. Treatment of favus consisted of irradiating the affected area with X-rays in order to completely epilate the hair and subsequent treatment with topical agents. In the third decade of the twentieth century, epilation with the use of tall acetate as an “internal epilatory” and a combined method combining both methods of hair epilation were included in the treatment of mycosis of the scalp. The combined method was considered ineffective and was not introduced into the clinics of TOZ. In the years 1921–1938, over 27,000 patients (Jewish children) were successfully treated in Eastern Europe. Eradication was was the goal of TOZ’s activities in Poland from the very beginning although it seems doubtful that until the outbreak of World War II it was possible to eradicate this disease in Poland. Nevertheless the success of the mass campaign to eradicate ringworm among the Jewish community in Poland was undeniable.

The article tells about the history of development the fi rst biological methods of treatment of schizophrenia, introduced after the II World War. At fi rst, there was insulin shock therapy, introduced for the fi rst time in 1933, then electroconvulsive therapy, applied in 1938 and lobotomy, which became popular method of treatment in 40s and 50s. Introducing every of this methods was an important step in schizophrenia research, altough all of them were mainly ineffective. Moreover all of this methods contain many side effects, even dangerous to life. It seems that development of each of this methods was crucial step important to introduce much more effective and safety ways of treatment of this disease.

The article discusses the issue of the perception of the academic milieu of medical historians through the prism of the new post-war reality of the early 1950s. The author, based on the document – a report on a tour of scientifi c institutions by Dr. A. Smoluchowski – presents the then way of assessing medical historians, which to a large extent it depended on their individual views and attitude to the new Marxist ideology. In the end, the image of the community of Polish medical historians of the analyzed period turned out to be not the most interesting. It was supposed to be very confl icted, full of prejudices, blurring, disagreements, very attached to the pre-war way of practicing history, with little valuable achievements. How was it really? What could have been the cause of such an opinion? The author of the article tries to fi nd an answer to these and other questions.

Sister Klemensa of the Assumption, Janina Wójcik (1893–1982), was born in Nowy Sącz, to the family of Ignacy – a railwayman and Jadwiga née Zwierzyńska. She graduated from the Private Teachers’ Seminary in Tarnów, gaining qualifi cations to teach manual labor in elementary schools. She entered the Congregation of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in 1917. She made her perpetual profession in 1925. Before the outbreak of World War II, she worked in the monasteries in Wirów, Szymanów, Jarosław, Słonim, Niżniów and Maciejów as an economist, refectory and vestress. After the outbreak of World War II, she was forced to leave the monastery in Maciejów. She stayed briefl y in Lviv. In 1940, she was deported to the Mariinsky Autonomous Socialist Republic of the USSR. She worked in the canteen in Nowa Strojka, then in the hospital in Joszkar-Oła. In the 1970s, Sister Klemensa wrote down retrospective memoirs entitled “Memoirs from Russia of Sister Klemensa of the Assumption (Janina Wójcik). My memories of the last war (1939–1946)”. They count 25 single-sided pages. They include the time of deportation, with particular emphasis on information about the work performed. Sister Klemensa returned to Poland, to Nowy Sącz in 1946.

In the collections of Turkish public scientifi c institutions, museums and libraries, there are extensive resources of historical artifacts connected thematically with the history of medicine and pharmacy. They include mainly manuscript books in Arabic, Persian, Turkish and also in Greek and Latin, which were gathered in the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The historical and medical collections contain also numerous printed books, including critical editions of the work by the classic authors of Islamic medicine together with their translations into congressional languages. In Istanbul, we can also fi nd numerous examples of various types of devices and equipment used in connection with the treatment and production of medicines. The article consists of two parts. The fi rst part presents the outline of the history of the evelopment of historical collections in Istanbul connected with the history of medicine and pharmacy. The second part describes selected museum facilities and collections.

The article discusses ancient philosophical sources for humourism. It focuses on the philosophical context described in the fi rst chapter of Beata Wojciechowska’s book Flebotomia i purgowanie, czyli o leczeniu w wiekach średnich [Phlebotomy and purging, or about medical treatment in the Middle Ages]. The author briefl y points out the differences between the Epicurean, Stoic, Peripatetic and Academic positions on the nature of the soul, its relation to the body and the universe.