The work „On the physical education of children” is unique because it is a canon of reflection on the physical development of a person in the context of pedagogical and medical knowledge. Śniadecki justified educational and pedagogical guidelines with the physiological theory of which he was the creator. Śniadecki saw the guarantee of health in the development of the abilities of the human body, which was to guarantee physical education. Therefore, it allowed him to boldly identify physical education with medical education, creating the foundations for modern health prevention.

In the paper the socially significant issue of the relationship between the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and the discourses about the disease was addressed, their infl uence on social attitudes towards pandemic and how in the spoken debates the patocenotic thinking (Mirko Grmek paradigm on relation between pathogens and pandemics and other dependencies e.g. social, economic, cultural) is presented. The analysis covered three main fields of discourses: 1) scientific-expert (reports of Polish Academy of Sciences, articles of polish medical society), 2) patient-expert (medical advice portals), 3) bottom-up and non-expert discourses (social media). The determinations were made on the errors in both public communication and expert discourse, functioning of technicized and medialized medical advice portals, emotional dimension of discourses in social media, as well as polarization of all those fields.

* Praca była finansowana z grantu uczelnianego, kierownictwo grantu: dr hab. Jaromir Jeszke, prof. UAM.

The subject of refl ection is the architecture of a contemporary hospice, which is an expression of social needs, tendencies in palliative medicine, and economic conditions. From the analysis of these objects, a model of a medical unit performing a therapeutic and care function emerges, taking into account the needs of belonging, respect and self-fulfillment of patients. Its program includes personalized hospital rooms, rooms for integrating patients with medical and nursing staff and volunteers, and for meeting the spiritual needs of this community. The special character of this function is emphasized by aesthetic dispositions on a rural and urban, architectural and landscape scale. Often, hospice projects also contain a symbolic message of religious or para-religious content contained in the forms of buildings and their interiors. Considerations on the architectural assumptions of hospices – those special objects in which the act of “transition” crowning human life take place, lead to the conclusion that thanks to the dispositions of a functional, aesthetic and semantic nature, the act of architectural creation acquires an ethical dimension, introducing solutions through logic, aesthetics and symbolism emotional, social, mental and spiritual order.

Medicine and Nationalism – a hospital station at the Jewish cemetery in Wrocław

Between 1941 and 1945, in some regions of the Third Reich, Jews were allowed to function, if, among other things, they had non-Jewish spouses or were considered, according to racial purity laws, to be so-called „Mischlings”. German half-blood Jews, due to the Aryan blood element, were initially not affected by persecution to the same extent as full-blood Jews. In theory, they could, for example, seek exemption from racial laws, did not have to pay Jewish property tax or wear the Star of David. They were also spared during the first deportations. The question of the extermination of German Jews in mixed marriages or those who were categorised as being of „mixed descent” was repeatedly raised in National Socialist offices and institutions but was never finally resolved. In line with the National Socialist racial ideology, separate medical facilities had to be established for this social group, providing health care services. Such centres were set up from 1943 onwards in the larger German cities where there were still relatively large numbers of Jews. They were opened on the Gestapo’s orders as so-called hospital stations (Krankenstation). Such institutions operated in: Berlin, Breslau (now Wrocław), Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg and Cologne. An abandoned administrative building located in the Jewish cemetery at what was then Flughafenstraße 51 (now Lotnicza Street) in the Cosel (Kozanów) district was designated as the headquarters of the Wrocław facility, which egan operating on 1 July 1943.

Professional training in medicine and pharmacy hat begun in Wrocław by the 1945. The Faculty of Medicine was created within the structure of Wrocław University and Wrocław Universite of Science and Technology. In 1950, a specialized medical school was developed from University, functioning briefl u under the name the Medical Academy (which was changed to the Academy of Medicine), with an independent Faculty of Pharmacy. In 1979, the Medical Analytics Department was established within the Faculty of Pharmacy. In 1978, the Faculty of Nursing was created which was transformed into the Faculty of Public Health in 2001 and into the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2008. Starting in 1989, the school was called the Academy of Medicine in Wrocław (Akademia Medyczna im. Piastów Śląskich). In 1992 the Post-Graduate Faculty of Medicine was distinquished from the Faculty of Medicine, In 2000 the Department of Dentistry was transformed into the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry. As a part of the school, liberal arts and social studies connected with medicine were also developed in units located within the structure of various departments of the AM. The Academy existed in Wrocław until 2011 when the decision was made to transform it into Wrocław Medical University (Uniwersytet Medyczny im. Piastów Śląskich we Wrocławiu), functioning until now. The article presents the major stages in the history of medical schools in Wrocław after 1945. The second part discusses the history of Academy of Medicine in the years 1950–2011.

The article discusses the organization and activity of the rural health service in the mid-1960s in the light of the reports of the Supreme Audit Office. It is an attempt to answer the questions about the organization and availability of open healthcare in the field, whether the provincial community benefited from professional medical assistance to the same extent as the urban one? What were the problems of the then rural health service?