Review article
Ninety years of the antituberculosis mission of the Topolšica Hospital (1919-2009)
Zvonka Zupanič Slavec
; Institute for the History of Medicine, Ljubljana University School of Medicine, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Ksenija Slavec
; Ljubljana University School of Medicine
Abstract
The beginnings of the hospital reach back to the discovery of a thermal spring in the sixteenth century, which became a public bath and eventually a spa in 1838. In 1919, the government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes purchased the premises and converted the spa into a tuberculosis sanatorium. The institution prospered rapidly and began to expand. During its heyday, it included around thirty buildings with 300 hospital beds. In addition to climatic and dietary therapy, surgical treatment was also practiced and, following the discovery of antibiotics, tuberculosis was largely contained by the mid 1960s. The leading physicians who fought against tuberculosis were Otto Haus, Karel Lušicky, Vaso Savić, Mirko Karlin, and Josip Otahal. The post-tuberculosis period was characterised by a search for a new mission; new connections were formed with the hospital in Celje (in 1970) and the Velenje health centre (in 1976). Since 1993, the institution has operated as an independent pulmonary and internal medicine hospital in the Šalek Valley.
Keywords
tuberculosis sanatorium; phthisiologists; Topolšica, Slovenia
Hrčak ID:
52382
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2009.
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