Pregledni rad

History of infectious disease service development in Croatia

T. Jeren

Sažetak

Due to geopolitical position of Croatia, confrontations of interests between the East and West have occurred on this territory throughout the ages and have caused numerous battles in the history. These events contributed to spread of infectious diseases epidemics which caused demographic changes and influenced the economic, social and cultural events as well. Therefore, it is clear why the search for an answer how to protect from and treat infectious diseases is as old as the civilization. All medical achievements of West Latin, Greek and Arab civilizations have spread very quickly over the territory of Croatia. Preventive me dicine and public health regulations were incorporated in infectology up to the 19th century. At first, patients with infectious diseases were cared for by Benedictines, Paulists, Knights Hospitallers, Franciscans and later on by Jesuits while spreading Christianity. References on procedures for infectious diseases have been found in the oldest written documents in Latin, Granolithic scripts and Bosnian Cyrillic scripts, especially in Vinodol, Trogir, Zadar, Šibenik, Dubrovnik, Split and Kotor. The development of Croatian infectology, like in other parts of the world, was related to the outbreaks which influenced the demographic structure and history of numerous people (leprosy, plague, malaria, smallpox, cholera). The occurrence of these diseases gave an early rise to the first »primitive hospitals« and as early as the 14th century to real hospitals (the first quarantine in the world was established in Dubrovnik in 1377). The fact that Croatia had always followed modern world achievements was proved once again by the use of Jenners vaccine in Varaždin only two years after its discovery and as early as in 1809 this vaccine became obligatory in some parts of Croatia, among the first in the world. The same was with cholera: only three years after the bacillus has been detected in the stool and polluted water (R Koch, 1883) the municipal authorities of Zagreb issued references on anti-cholera campaign based on the latest world knowledge. In the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, infectious diseases, now the modern ones, such as streptococcal diseases, diphtheria, typhus, tuberculosis, trachoma and echinococcosis were intensively studied by Croatian physicians and laboratory diagnosis was developed. The modern treatment approach to the complex interdisciplinary problem of infectious diseases using all microbiologic, epidemiologic, immunologic and molecular medicine knowledge, was set up by dr Fran Mihaljević, a universal physician and real visionary of the future infectology. The range of infectious diseases has greatly changed (vaccines, antibiotics, health culture, natural pathomorphism, etc.). Those of high lethality have mostly (not all) disappeared, but some new, so called diseases of the civilization, with lower lethality (except AIDS, some hemorrhagic fevers, SARS, etc.) but with great social and economic importance have emerged.

Ključne riječi

infectious diseases; Croatia; history

Hrčak ID:

12765

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/12765

Datum izdavanja:

30.9.2005.

Podaci na drugim jezicima: hrvatski

Posjeta: 3.268 *