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Recognition Award for the Museum of the History of Medicine in XIV edition of annual competition “The Willow – Mazovian Museum Events 2020”

Fot. ze zb. Muzeum Historii Medycyny WUM.

We are delighted and proud to announce that our University Museum has received a Recognition Award in the 14th edition of annual competition “The Willow – Mazovian Museum Events” in the category “The most interesting exhibition – organized by major museums”  for organizing the exhibition titled “Femina et Medicina. A portrait of Hygiea in the academic tradition of Warsaw”. We found ourselves  in exclusive company of other recognized top tier Warsaw cultural institutions, including The Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the National Museum in Warsaw. The award ceremony will be held on 14th September at the Radom Open Air Museum in the city of Radom. We are pleased  that our hard work has been appreciated, it will increase  motivation to redouble and improve our efforts in the future.

Link to the exhibition publication: Femina et Medicina. Portret Hygiei w tradycji akademickiej Warszawy

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Exhibition “Between Warsaw and Zakopane. The legend of Tytus Chałubiński.”

The Museum of the History of Medicine of the Medical University of Warsaw informs that all exhibitions are temporarily closed. We will be pleased to welcome you again after the situation related to the epidemiological risk has stabilized at the new exhibition:

Between Warsaw and Zakopane. The legend of Tytus Chałubiński.

Legendary heroes were usually warriors, saints, and outstanding figures. The tales which appear in folklore, were at first passed down by word of mouth; they were modified and sometimes it is difficult to trace them back to their source. They are associated more with metaphor than with fact.

Over a century ago, there lived a certain fine doctor who saved the mountain people from a contagious epidemic and poverty. He also embraced the impoverished folk of the big city with his kindness and the two places of his activity were far removed from one another. He travelled around Europe, visited the best hospitals, studied at universities, uncovered the secrets of the mountains, and healed people free of charge. Perhaps given time, this is how future generations will relate the story of Tytus Chałubiński’s life.

The young man, who came from Radom, attended the Academy of Medicine and Surgery in Vilnius at a time when Polish historical events painted a bleak picture. His medical studies, which he initially chose without any real enthusiasm, provided him with knowledge and directed him to activities which led to him being seen as a living legend in both Warsaw and Zakopane; he was their saviour and helper. By studying medicine and botany concurrently, first in Würzburg and later in Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia), he marked out the paths of his adult life – becoming a doctor by profession, a botanist by his passion. Continue reading “Exhibition “Between Warsaw and Zakopane. The legend of Tytus Chałubiński.””

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1920–2020. One hundred years of teaching internal medicine. Mściwój Semerau-Siemianowski – the father of modern cardiology, 13.01.2020

The Museum of the History of Medicine at the Medical University of Warsaw (WUM) warmly invites you to the opening of the exhibition 1920–2020. One hundred years of teaching internal medicine. Mściwój Semerau-Siemianowski – the father of modern cardiology, which will take place on 13 January at 1 pm, at the WUM Educational Centre, first floor, at 2a Trojdena Street.

The exhibition is under the honorary patronage of Rector Prof. Mirosław Wielgoś.

Over 100 years ago, at the beginning of the 1918/1919 academic year, Dr Mściwój Semerau-Siemanowski begins working as assistant professor under Professor Kazimierz Rzętkowski (1870–1924) at the Second Clinic of Internal Medicine of the University of Warsaw which had been established in The Holy Spirit Hospital (Pol: Szpital św. Ducha) on Elektoralna Street. At this clinic, Mściwój Semerau-Siemianowski develops utilitarian methods for carrying out cardiac and cardiovascular examinations, and adds the relatively recently discovered (i.e. only a dozen or so years earlier) electrocardiographic (ECG) examination to the routine tests undergone by patients. From 1920, for the first time in the history of the university, he gives lectures on physical examinations of internal medicine patients, although not yet officially a university teacher. So, symbolically, it could be said that we are celebrating the centenary of modern teaching of internal medicine and the diagnostic testing of research into the circulatory system at our Alma Mater.

Thirty years later cardiology becomes a separate discipline from internal medicine. However, already in the 1920s and 1930s,  after the death of his superior, Dr. Mściwój Semerau-Siemianowski lays the foundations of cardiology very firmly.

In 1922, he publishes a dissertation: On the activities of intrinsically beating chambers of the human heart: a pharmacological and physio-pathological study, which became the basis of his post-doctoral thesis (habilitation). Shortly afterwards, the young university teacher begins giving his own lectures on the diagnostics and therapy of cardiovascular diseases. As of the 1924/25 academic year, he establishes and takes over the management of the Department of Internal Diseases in the new St Lazarus Hospital on Książęca Street – the first department in Poland to specialize in cardiovascular diseases, with separate analytical, radiological, electrocardiographic, haematological and resting metabolism laboratories. There was also a room set up at the centre for experimental testing on animals. The laboratories were partially equipped at his own expense.

In 1935 he withdraws from some of the didactic lectures in internal medicine, devoting himself exclusively to cardiological issues – in the years 1936–38 he runs the first two-week postgraduate training course in Poland for cardiologists. However, the establishment of independent structures of Polish cardiology is interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. Professor Mściwój Semerau-Siemianowski revists the idea immediately after the war, after returning to Warsaw in 1949.

In 2020, exactly 70 years will have passed since 15 January 1950 when the Cardiology Department of the Society of Polish Internal Medicine Practitioners (Towarzystwa Internistów Polskich – TIP) – the leading centre of internal medicine in Warsaw – was established under Professor Mściwój Semerau-Siemanowski at the Second Clinic of Internal Medicine of the University of Warsaw. In addition to the chairman, the Department included three students and associates of the Master: Jerzy Jakubowski (Vice-President), Dmitri Aleksandrov (Secretary) and Edward Żera (Treasurer). Therefore seventy years ago the formal process of setting cardiology apart from internal medicine began, and four years later the newly-established Society of Polish Internal Medicine Practitioners (TIP) became the Polish Society of Cardiology (PTK). This was officially confirmed on 28 February 1954. We shall be reminding you about all of this at the exhibition marking the centenary and 70th anniversary being held within the walls of the Medical University of Warsaw.

Prof. Krzysztof J. Filipiak

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The Long Night of Museums, 18 May 2019, 6 p.m. – half past midnight; at the Medical University of Warsaw (WUM).

 

The Museum of the History of Medicine (WUM), warmly invites you to The Long Night of Museums, which will take place on 18 May 2019 from 6 p.m. – half past midnight, at the Banach Campus of the Medical University of Warsaw.

PROGRAMME

EXHIBITIONS:

  1. On the border between Life and Death. The mysterious mummy from the collections of the Medical University of Warsaw
  2. Femina et Medicina. Portrait of Hygieia in the academic tradition of Warsaw
  3. The past twenty years… Highlights of the Faculty of Health Education at the Medical University of Warsaw (WUM)
  4. Medicine and Pharmacy in Warsaw through the lens of a pre-war camera.

LECTURES / WALKS

  1. Egyptian mummies; an eternal mystery – Prof. Dr. Hab. Andrzej Niwiński. Library and Information Centre (CBI), in the Prof. Antoni Dobrzański Room, 7.15 p.m.
  2. Mummies, mummifiers and paleopathology – Dr. Hanna Pliszka, Halina Przychodzeń, MA, Dr. Małgorzata Brzozowska, Dr. Sylwia Tarka. Library and Information Centre (CBI), in the Prof. Antoni Dobrzański Room, 8 p.m.
  3. Walks: Symbols of the Medical University of Warsaw; The best of… led by Dr. Adam Tyszkiewicz (Please assemble at 6.30 p.m. and 11 p.m. at the starting point at the main entrance to the Rector’s Building).

Concert entitled Dance of the Night given by the Orchestra of the Medical University of Warsaw conducted by Beata Herman. It will feature works by Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Strauss. Didactic Centre, in the Professor Janusz Piekarcyzk Lecture Hall, 9.30 p.m.

The following venues will only be open to visitors during The Long Night of Museums: Senate Hall; the Study of the Rector, Professor Mirosław Wielgoś MD; the Study of the Dean of the First Faculty of Medicine, Professor Paweł Włodarski MD; the Professor Janusz Piekarczyk Lecture Hall; and the Reading Room of the Main Library of the Medical University of Warsaw (WUM) (2nd floor).

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The lecture by Professor Thomas Schnalke of the Berlin Museum of the History of Medicine at the Charité entitled: ‘Beneath the Skin. Tracing Life in the Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité’.


Dr. Adam Tyszkiewicz, Director of the Museum of the History of Medicine at the Medical University of Warsaw warmly invites you to a lecture to be given by Professor Thomas Schnalke of the Berlin Museum of the History of Medicine at the Charité entitled: ‘Beneath the Skin. Tracing Life in the Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité’.

The lecture will begin at 2.30 p.m. on Thursday 11 April 2019 and will take place in Room 27 in the Library and Information Centre (Centrum Biblioteczno – Informacyjne) building at 63 Żwirki i Wigury Street.

The lecture will be in English.

The Berlin Museum of the History of Medicine at the Charité is one of the most famous European museums with a medical profile. It is located on the site of the Charité Hospital, in a building which was commissioned by the famous pathologist, Professor Rudolf Virchow. At the exhibition you can learn not only about the history of the hospital and the history of medicine in Germany, but also view the many pathological preparations collected by physicians in Berlin over many decades. In recent years the Museum has organized many interesting and unusual temporary exhibitions showing the connections between medicine and art, as well as forensic science and death. This year, on 21 March 2019, another exhibition opened in Berlin devoted to the famous surgeon, Ferdinand Sauerbruch. Since 2000 the post of director of the Berlin Museum of the History of Medicine at the Charité has been held by Professor Thomas Schnalke, whom we shall have the pleasure of hosting in Warsaw in April. During his lecture he will talk not only about amassing medical collections, but will also present his vision of managing a modern museum of the history of medicine, whose name is recognizable throughout the whole world.

Prof. Thomas Schnalke (b. 1958), is a medical historian. He studied medicine in Würzburg and Marburg. He was awarded a doctoral degree in 1987 when he defended a thesis on the history of medical moulage (models in wax of skin lesions, tumours and other pathological skin diseases). In 1993 he obtained his post-doctoral degree in the history of medicine. His research was on urban medicine in German-speaking countries in the eighteenth century. After returning to Berlin in 2000 he began an intensive study of the history of amassing anatomical and anatomical and pathological collections. Under his leadership, many interesting exhibitions on the borderline between medicine, art and forensic science have been organized at the Berlin Museum of the History of Medicine at the Charité. In recent years these have included: HIEB § STICH Dem Verbrechen auf der Spur (2016–2018) and ScheinTOT – Über die Ungewissheit des Todes und die Angst, lebendig begraben zu werden (2018). Professor Schnalke’s most important publications include: Diseases in wax: the history of the medical moulage, Berlin 1995; Medizin im Brief : der städtische Arzt des 18. Jahrhunderts im Spiegel seiner Korrespondenz, Stuttgart 1997; and Dem Leben auf der Spur im Berliner Medizinhistorischen Museum der Charité: Dauerausstellung / Charité, Universitätsmedizin Berlin ; Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité, Berlin 2010 (co-authored with Isabel Atzl).

Admission Free!
We invite you to join us!

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THE HERITAGE OF ASCLEPIUS. MEDICINE VERSUS THE HUMANITIES

The Museum of the History of Medicine, Medical University of Warsaw, hereby invites you to a new series of museum events in 2019 under the title of ‘The Heritage of Asclepius. Medicine  versus the Humanities’. The aim of the first series of these meetings will be to present medicine against a background of the humanities, such as history of art, literature, theatre, law and philosophy. All the meetings will take place on the first Monday of each month at 5 p.m. During the warmer months of the year, we would also like to invite you to take part in walks which are planned along the Royal Route and on the Lindley Campus. To start with, on 7 January, Dr. Adam Tyszkiewicz, Director of the Museum of the History of Medicine, will give a lecture entitled: ‘The relationship between Apollo and Asclepius, that is the relationship between art and medicine’. During the lecture you will learn about the diseases from which well-known artists suffered, including Vincent Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, and Stanisław Wyspiański, and also discover which early modern works of art and sculptures should be included in the catalogue devoted to the connections between art and medicine and what characterized the architecture of the most famous European hospitals.

We look forward to seeing you on Monday 7 January 2019 at 5 p.m.

Programme:

7 January 2019 – Dr. Adam Tyszkiewicz (Director of the Museum of the History of Medicine): ‘The relationship between Apollo and Asclepius, that is the relationship between art and medicine’. In the L. Paszkiewicz Room in the Collegium Anatomicum building, 5  T. Chałubiński Street

4 February 2019 – Dr. Emilia Olechnowicz (Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences ISPAN) – The body as ‘matter worthy of a theatrical setting’. About early modern anatomical theatres. In the W. Grzywo – Dąbrowski Lecture Room in the Department of Forensic Medicine building, 1 W. Oczki Street.

4 March 2019 – Dr. Maria Turos (Medical University of Warsaw) – Lecturers in Uniform – ‘Warsaw School of Medicine’ 1809–1831. In the A. Dobrzański Room in the Library and Information Centre, 63 Żwirki i Wigury Street.

1 April 2019 – Professor Dr. Hab. Elżbieta Wichrowska (Faculty of Polish Language and Literature, University of Warsaw) – From prophecies, ‘reforms’ of outfits, diets to heal the body – that is the first ‘bloomerists’, mesmerists, homoeopaths, vegetarians, hydropathists and abstinents in England and elsewhere… Room no. 27 in the Library and Information Centre, 63 Żwirki i Wigury Street.

6 May 2019 – Dr. Karolina Paczyńska – Famous doctors, hospitals of the past and the teaching of medicine along the Royal Route (walk). Meet at the Barbican, on the side of Krzywe Koło Street

3 June 2019 – Dr. Adam Tyszkiewicz (Museum of the History of Medicine of the Medical University of Warsaw) – In the shadow of Warsaw’s skyscrapers. Secrets of the Lindley Campus (walk). Meet in front of the Collegium Anatomicum building at 5 T. Chałubiński Street.

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Professor Dr. Hab. Witold Janusz Rudowski, MD (1918 – 2001)

On 3 December 2018, in the reading room of the Main Library of the Medical University of Warsaw, an exhibition was opened entitled: ‘Surgeon and Soldier of the Home Army (AK), or the reminiscences of the extraordinary life of Professor Dr. Hab. Witold Janusz Rudowski, MD (1918 – 2001), recipient of an honorary degree from the Medical Academy of Warsaw (1978) on the centenary of his birth’.

Visitors will be able to learn about the Professor’s interesting biography and also see, among other things, part of an interesting collection of medals belonging to Prof. Witold Janusz Rudowski, which are on loan to the museum. The medals were awarded to Professor Rudowski in recognition of his professional achievements. The names of many outstanding Polish and foreign doctors appear on them: Józef Struś, Tytus Chałubiński, Karol Marcinkowski, Ludwik Rydygier, Louis Pasteur, as well as the names of universities and medical societies.

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Professor Andrzej Trzebski – renowned scholar

The Director of the Institute of Cardiology named after the Polish Primate Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Professor Tomasz Hryniewiecki; the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, PAN (Polish Academy of Sciences), Professor Witold Rużyłło, and the Director of the Museum of the History of Medicine, Medical University of Warsaw (WUM), Dr. Adam Tyszkiewicz, cordially invite you to an academic seminar under the Honorary Patronage of Professor Mirosław Wielgoś, Rector of the Medical University of Warsaw devoted to the memory of Professor Andrzej Trzebski, a renowned scholar.

The seminar will be held in the Conference Room of the Children’s Clinical Hospital named after Józef Polikarp Brudziński  at 63A  Żwirki i Wigury Street (level – 1) on 28 November 2018, 11 a.m.

Programme:

Professor Mirosław Wielgoś ― The creative academic career of Professor Andrzej Trzebski

Professor Ewa Szczepańska-Sadowska ― Professor Trzebski, a physiologist: his contribution to clinical sciences

Professor Gianfranco Parati ― Blood pressure variability: mechanisms and clinical implications

Professor Krzysztof Narkiewicz ― Chemoreflexes in health and cardiovascular disease

Professor Aleksander Prejbisz ― Sympathetic nervous system and catecholamines ― a focus on secondary hypertension

Professor Andrzej Januszewicz ― Sympathetic nervous system and cardiovascular risk

Discussion

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65th Anniversary of Receiving an MD’s Graduation Diploma.

As well as graduates and their tutors, the event was also attended by: Professor Mirosław Wielgoś, Rector of the Medical University of Warsaw; Professor Mieczysław Szostek, President of the Association of Students of Warsaw Medicine and Pharmacy; Dr. Krzysztof Makuch – member of the District Chamber of Medicine in Warsaw, and Dr. Adam Tyszkiewicz, who became director of the Museum of the History of Medicine of the Medical University of Warsaw (WUM) from 1 October 2018

All the guests were greeted by Dr. Irena Brydowska-Skórzewska – representative of the year, who has held this position since she began her studies in 1948 at the then-Faculty of Medicine of the University of Warsaw.

Dr. Irena Brydowska-Skórzewska presented Dr. Adam Tyszkiewicz with a copy of Kronika (Chronicle) which she was donating to the Museum of the History of Medicine of the Medical University of Warsaw (WUM). The chronicle contains archival materials, photographs and documents relating to activities during the 1948-1953 academic year, as well as of consecutive meetings of the graduates which have been held to the present day. The Museum of the History of Medicine also prepared a multimedia presentation for guests which consisted of photographs of the students and their contemporaries from the 1953 year group.

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Sixtieth Anniversary of Receiving an MD’s Graduate Diploma. Academic Year 1952–1958

On 15 June 2018 an event took place in which graduates who had obtained their diplomas in 1958 from the Faculty of Medicine (now the Academy of Medicine) had their diplomas renewed after 60 years.

Sixty-two graduates participated in the event, as well as University authorities, including Professor Mirosław Wielgoś and the Dean of the first Faculty of Medicine, Professor Paweł Włodarski.

The invited guests were welcomed firstly by Professor Mieczysław Szostek, the organizer of the event. At the opening ceremony those who had sadly passed away and had therefore been denied the opportunity of attending this extraordinary event were also remembered; Professor Mieczysław Szostek invited those present to hold a minute’s silence in honour of those who could not be with them. Professor Mirosław Wielgoś then gave a speech. He thanked the jubilarians for coming on this beautiful day and congratulated them on their achievements and accomplishments on behalf of the University. He emphasized that the 1958 academic year group was without doubt exceptional and had forged many talented and gifted doctors who had gained fame.

After the official speeches, the protagonists of the event took a trip down memory lane: they watched multimedia presentations with historic photographs featuring both the academic staff and themselves from the time of their matriculation and medical studies. The photographs shown in the presentation come from the University archives, and also from the private collections of Professors Mieczysław Szostek and Zbigniew Miller.

 

The jubilarians received commemorative diplomas confirming that throughout all the years which had passed since their graduation from the Academy of Medicine in Warsaw, they had faithfully heeded the Hippocratic Oath and had become the pride of the Polish medical establishment.

Klaudia Wendycz – Press Office