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Medical history of the city of Rijeka is a rich treasure trove of events, celebrities and valuable innovations in the field of healthcare. The historical development of Rijeka was largely determined by her geopolitical position as a border town with a multicultural population, marked by strong conflicts of interest and numerous identity turmoil. The great exodus of the domicile population of Italian nationality after World War II has significantly changed the social picture of the city. Among many of such esuli (immigrants) were brothers Giovanni (b. 1932) and Abdon (b. 1933) Pamich, whose lives are reminiscent of the fate of many displaced people from Rijeka who were forced to live in exile after the war. After leaving their hometown during the formative years of their childhood, they had successful careers in Italy in the fields of medicine and healthcare. The older brother Giovanni became a successful surgeon and the younger Abdon a psychologist. Along with his positions as the head of general surgery at the Monfalcone and Gorizia Hospitals, Giovanni Pamich was teaching at the University of Trieste. Abdon Pamich collaborated with the best Italian tennis players in the field of sports psychology, and was a psychologist for the Italian handball team. They both practiced athletics, and Abdon Pamich won the silver medal in speed walking at the 1958 European Championships in Sweden and the gold medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In addition to emphasizing the achievements of the two brothers in the field of medicine, this paper also addresses the position of the migrant, which is highlighted in Robert Covaz’s book “Abdon Pamich, memorie di un marciatore (Rome, 2016), an exciting biography of an emigrant from Rijeka. The paper also explores the concept of thematizing the limits of differences and experiences of migration of Rijeka residents facing the existential issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the architecture of the Royal National Institute for the Insane in Stenjevec during its construction and the first years of its existence. Since the opening of the Institute in 1879 until the end of the World War I, there were numerous adaptations and extensions of the original capacities. The paper shows how these extensions reflected the existing paradigm of the institutional architecture in the second half of the 19th century. Architecture, under the influence of Pinel's "moral treatment" as a primary therapeutic approach to mental illnesses in the 19th century, was considered to be a remedy and its therapeutic importance in the context of psychiatry was not questioned. While early examples of the architecture of psychiatric hospitals copied prison construction and were adapted to control the mentally ill (e.g., the Viennese "Narrenturm"), later plans, such as linear and separate (pavilion), sought to simultaneously increase control effectiveness, act therapeutically and respond to some practical needs of the more crowded institutes. The Stenjevec Institute, designed by the Viennese architect Kuno Waidmann, was created exactly at the transition between the linear and the separate type. The institute, originally conceived as a linear type of institution, was later transformed into a separate or pavilion type institute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Searching for an answer whether medicine is a science or an art, especially in today's time when the emphasis is on the biotechnological aspects of treatment, the intention of this paper is to reflect on the outcomes of the encounter of medicine and art. Those that are recognised at least in the complementarity of the methodology, creating additional life values. By presenting authentic actions, this is a call for additional health improvement interventions, without allowing the biopsychosocial approach to human integrity to be forgotten. The inspiration for this view was the prestigious title of the European Capital of Culture that the Town of Rijeka was awarded for the year 2020. This city is also a kind of capital of health culture in many ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medicine and physicians in Dubrovnik during the last two centuries, i.e. in the period after the dissolution of the Republic of Dubrovnik by Napoleon's Army, have attracted less interest among medical historians. In this paper, the lives and medical careers of two physicians from Dubrovnik, father and son, Baldo and Ante Bibica, have been reconstructed from the end of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century by searching through the contemporary medical journals and newspapers as well as private archives of the members of family Bibica. Baldo Bibica graduated medicine in Vienna and spent the whole professional life as a municipal physician, at first, in the places in the vicinity of Dubrovnik and from 1903 in Gruž. Ante Bibica studied medicine in Graz and in Zagreb to become the first person from Dubrovnik promoted at the School of Medicine, Zagreb University. He specialized in dermatovenereology in Vienna and worked, as a specialist, in Dubrovnik. They both were active in the professional medical societies (at local and national levels) and were influential in the social life in Dubrovnik. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the attitude of the society towards the medical profession, which was torn between high social expectations and ideals and medical practice confronted with real-life obstacles. In the 19th century, the physician's position was still precarious and called for a renegotiation in the community. Physician's work was faced with people's distrust and resistance, superstitions and prejudices, folk medicine and religion. Even such ideal qualities as dignity, conscientiousness, and courage, would quickly be called into question by events such as epidemics. Particularly in 19th century rural areas, the physician's position was far from acknowledged and official medicine had yet to win people's trust. This paper explores the polyvalent attitude of people towards medicine and health. It investigates the discourse used to describe health and medicine in daily press, professional and popular literature, as well as in official medical documents of the time. It shows a long struggle of public health care to gain people's approval. During cholera epidemics, which apart from presenting serious threat to human life were an opportunity for medicine to win people's trust and obedience, the attitude towards health gradually began to change. To some extent this was a result of medical advances, new scientific discoveries, and increasing success in abating the epidemics. At the same time, as the society became more secular, medicine slowly gained people's trust and gradually replaced the healing methods of folk medicine. Health was less and less understood as a result of God's will and mercy, and the attitude towards disease began to evolve from passive resignation to an active battle for health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]