FRA DUJO OSTOJIĆ (1863.–1938.) I NJEGOV “DOMAĆI LIEČNIK – MEDICUS DOMESTICUS”

Abstract

Fra Dujo Ostojić (Bijakovići, 1863 - Humac kod Ljubuškog, 1938) was an educator, teacher, spiritual guide, pastor, cultural, political, charity and welfare activist, a bibliophile, collector, chronicler, and copyist, who worked all over Herzegovina. In 1913, he became Franciscan provincial in Mostar. He was also a member of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian parliament in Sarajevo, where he fervently advocated the rights, identity, and cultural and economic interests of the Croatian people of Herzegovina. At about the same time he bought printing machines from a local printer Dionička tiskara and started a printing office that later became the well known Tiskara FP (FP - Franciscan Province). He continued to write his memoirs, adding new manuscripts to the volume. Two of them are worth of particular mention: “Domaći liečnik – Medicus domesticus” (“People’s Doctor”, 1146 large format pages) and “Necrologium”. There he describes the lives of Franciscan brothers and people he knew who practiced the art of pharmacy and medicine, and expands the recipes collected in healing books of the time. Unlike the manuscripts of some of his brothers, Ostojić’s have survived for over seventy years to this day, to reveal his magnificent legacy to the Croatian people.