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The Austrian emperor and the Croat-Hungarian king Franz Joseph I (1830/1848-1916) was the longest-serving ruler of the Habsburg dynasty. Among his properties was Osijek, which since 1809 enjoyed the status of a free royal city. In the period under review, it was the seat of the Virovitica County and the capital of the Kingdom of Slavonia until its incorporation into the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia after the Croat-Hungarian settlement of 1868. Because of this, Osijek was not only a political, economic and cultural centre but also a health care centre. At the beginning of the reign of Franz Joseph I, two hospitals were operating in it: a military one in the baroque military garrison Tvrđa and a civilian one in New Town. The most significant role in the further development of the Osijek and Slavonian health care was played by the trust established in 1806 from the legacies of innkeeper Johann Kolhoffer, tanner Josef Huttler and Jesuit Cristian Monsperger. Although originally intended for the establishment of an orphanage, due to a number of unfavourable political circumstances, the trust, until then with multiple interests attributed to the principal, came under the administration of the city of Osijek only in 1867. Along with the new orphanage opened in 1874, a new hospital was completed as well in 1868, also with the money from the trust. Huttler-Kohlhoffer-Monsperger Foundation Hospital was the largest and most modern hospital in the Triune Kingdom, and despite later constructions of various hospital wards, its building has remained the most representative building within the Clinical-Hospital Centre Osijek. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ibn Sina, better known to the Western medical historians by his Latin nickname Avicenna, is considered the third most important physician in medical history, along with the Greek physician Hippocrates and the Roman physician Galen. He was born around 980 in Afshona near Bukhara on the Silk Road in present-day Uzbekistan and died in 1037 in Hamadan near Tehran in present-day Iran. Among his greatest contributions to the development of medicine is his work entitled The Canon of Medicine, in which he summarized all the previous medical knowledge, which is why it has been used for centuries as a basic medical textbook. In recent times, in connection with the controversy over the naming of the medieval caliphate medicine, with the aim of formulating an inclusive term, which would not emphasize any involved group to the detriment of the others, paradoxically in the focus of the research of the in it interested historians of medicine, instead of the achievements of the individual doctors from the mentioned era, came the determination of their ethnic and religious affiliation, including Avicenna’s, all the more so because he came from the disputed area of the conflicts between different nations and opposing religions. In doing so, scientific discussions are increasingly joined by the erection of the representative architectural structures in the places related to the individual doctors, one of which is the representative Avicenna Museum in Afshona. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to their small size, numerous cellular divisions of the still growing and developing tissues and organs, as well as a longer life expectancy, children are approximately three times more sensitive to the same doses of ionizing radiation than adults. This is especially the case with the computerized tomography (CT) examinations, which despite making only 17 % of the ionizing radiological examinations, account for as much as 49 % of the total patient irradiation. Because of this, the Image Gently campaign in the early 2010s was thinking about abandoning the CT examinations in pediatric radiology and replacing them with the ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging as the methods of choice. The appearance of Flash CT technology, which simultaneously shortens the recording time and reduces radiation doses, has led to the abandonment of this way of thinking. This is also supported by the fact that, on the one hand, CT examinations are practically irreplaceable in the cases of trauma, while on the other hand, children, as well as members of all the other age groups, are constantly exposed to a smaller or larger amount of the environmental ionizing radiation (Earth, space, airplanes). In this sense, it is increasingly recommended to use the low dose CT (LDCT) techniques individually adapted to each patient, due to their small amount of ionizing radiation. On this track, we have tried to make a review of the latest findings on the mentioned problem based on the scientific papers published over the past three years (2016-2018). They show that the CT examinations are not only abandoned in the pediatric radiology, but that on the contrary, in the cases of numerous indications LDCT examinations make the gold standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plague epidemics have remained in the collective consciousness until nowadays remembered as the deadliest. Therefore, it is not surprising that the answers to them throughout history have been not only medical but also religious. The previously mentioned will be analyzed in this paper through the cults of the protector saints against the plague epidemics that have developed in two Croatian cities of comparable size, Rijeka and Osijek, but with the diametrically opposed geographical positions and, accordingly, quite different historical developments. On the one hand, a more detailed overview of the development of the cults of various saints present in the mentioned cities will be presented. On the other hand, based on their presentation in the sacral heritage of these cities, the broader context of the time and space in which they have developed will be lightened. Particular attention will be paid to their medical connotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial is dedicated to a commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci near Florence, April 15, 1452 - Cloux Castle, France, May 2, 1519) - the greatest Renaissance artist and one of the greatest artists in general. From his invaluable artistic and scientific heritage, only a small part dedicated to the exploration of the Nature was selected for this occasion. In this part, according to many, the most significant place is dedicated to his anatomical drawings as a lasting testament to his interest in anatomy and medicine in general. Much has been said and written about this topic over the past 500 years. While searching through numerous bibliographic sources, several of the most impressive drawings have been selected for this occasion, with a few short reminiscences, which bear the most impressive testimony to the brilliant mind of the great Leonardo, rightfully called uomo universale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although stethoscope was invented by French physician René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec (1781-1826) in 1816, its wider clinical application started only after the publication of his book entitled De l'Auscultation Médiate ou Traité, du Diagnostic des Maladies des Poumons et du Coeur in 1819. Its invention coincided with the development of the 'hospital medicine' in the post-revolutionary Paris during the first quarter of the 19th century. It has enabled then contemporary physicians to explain the correlation between the patient symptoms and the clinical findings and thus has helped the shift from the humoral pathology towards the solitary pathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis's significance for the history of medicine lies in his discovery of the cause of puerperal fever. He discovered it during his work at the First Obstetrics Clinic of the Vienna's Allgemeines Krankenhaus. Since the mentioned Clinic, led by the doctors, had much higher mortality rates of the child-bearing women than the Second Obstetrics Clinic, led by the midwives, he wanted to determine the causes of such a state. He came to the conclusion that puerperal sepsis was transmitted by the doctors and medical students, who after performing the anatomical sections started to perform the births with their hands beforehand washed only with soap. Semmelweis instead proposed a mandatory hand washing in a potassium-hypochlorite solution thus making the mortality at the First equivalent to the mortality at the Second Obstetrics Clinic. Despite this, his discovery was rejected by the established medical circuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plague was one of the most deadly epidemic diseases of the Baroque period. Responses to it were not only medical, but religious as well. A good example of the latter is the Most Holy Trinity monument in the city of Osijek, which was in the 18th century the biggest town of the Kingdom of Slavonia and today is the regional centre in the Republic of Croatia. The monument was erected between 1729 and 1730 on the main square of the Osijek military fortress Tvrda by the widow of the General Maksimilijan Petraš who died during the 1728 plague epidemic. Inscription on it implores the mercy of God as a protection against plague. Its foundation could be also interpreted as a part of the Catholic Revival, which was implemented by the Habsburgs in Osijek and Slavonia after their liberation from the Ottomans. But although, on the one hand, it could be interpreted as a symbol of the successful implementation of the Habsburg unifying religious policies due to its strong resemblance with the similar columns throughout the Habsburg Monarchy, on the other hand, it represented a continuation of the theurgic understanding of medicine, which could be interpreted as the failure of the Habsburg enlightened medical policies. Thus the archival documents from the Osijek State Archive together with the Osijek plague column itself were analysed with the aim of explaining the above mentioned ambiguities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emanuel Edward Klein (1844 - 1925) was a British microbiologist of Croatian origin. He was born in Osijek in what is currently the Republic of Croatia and which was then part of the Habsburg Monarchy, he completed his medical studies in Vienna in 1869, and went on to spend his entire career in London. Although trained as an anatomist, embryologist and histologist, his main area of research was microbiology. Due to the fact that back then it was a new and fast developing discipline, he was able to pursue his interests in many directions and make significant discoveries, such as the identification of the ‘Bacillus enteritidis sporogenes’ as a cause of summer hospital diarrhoeas. Although the overwhelming majority of his researches dealt with bacteria which attacked humans, in 1892 he published a book entitled The Etiology and Pathology of Grouse Disease, Fowl Enteritis, and Some Other Diseases Affecting Birds, which revealed the results of his experiments on the bacteria which affected birds. In the context of the general development of the microbiology, this paper tries to give an objective evaluation of this until now widely neglected book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the fact that developmental dysplasia of the hip is the most common congenital deformity of the locomotor system, the aim of the study was to determine the incidence and prevalence of various degrees of congenital hip strains according to Graf in the newborns born at the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Gospić General Hospital during a ten-year period (2004-2013). All neonates born at the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Gospić General Hospital from 2004 to 2013 were examined after birth and before discharge from the hospital by the ultrasound diagnostics and their hip maturity was graded according to Graf, with IA and IB degrees termed matured, IIA+ degrees designated as border cases that underwent follow up ultrasound after four to six weeks at the Department of Pediatrics, while generalized IIA- and higher, III and IV degrees were considered pathologic and consequently referred to orthopedic specialist for further corrections. The study included 3874 hips in 1937 infants whose modifi ed degrees of hip maturity according to Graf were as follows: IA in 1265, IB in 1532, IIA+ in 828, generalized IIA- and higher in 173, III in 66, and IV in 10 hips examined during the ten-year period. This study confi rmed that neonatal screening with ultrasound according to Graf with the aim to determine the degree of hip maturity in newborns and followed by orthopedic correction in those with congenital hip dislocations of generalized IIA- and higher, III and IV degrees confi rmed on regular follow up visits signifi cantly prevented their progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]