Obraz wileńskiej medycyny w pamiętnikach lekarzy – Józefa Franka i Stanisława Morawskiego

Abstract

In the article, the author proposes to consider Vilnius medicine from the memoirs of doctors – Józef Frank and Stanisław Morawski – as a performance. Such an analogy is derived from the history of medicine itself; for instance, the teaching of anatomy was earlier thought of as a performance in the theatrum anatomicum. In modern medicine a clinic, or a hospital, becomes the centre of the stage, encircled by a medical department, university and finally the city. The professor and the patient are actors; the students of the medical faculty are front row audience – interactive, we can add; in further rows we will find students of other majors. A general wider audience is the city, in whose life the students (and the university in general) have participated throughout history. The on-stage performances, that is therapy, are directed by the professor running the clinic. In this perspective, medicine of the early nineteenth century, practiced and lectured in Vilnius, becomes a socio-scientific phenomenon.