[Professor dr. Zdravko Kucic (1910-1961), Promoter of the Hospital Service in Post-War Rijeka] / Prof. Dr. Zdravko Kucic (1910. ­ 1961.), organizator bolnicke sluzbe u poslijeratnoj Rijeci

Dr Zdravko Kucic was born in Bakar on 11 April 1910. In1928 he finished the Gymnasium in Susak and graduated from the School of Medicine, University of Belgrade in1934. After completing the internship in Zagreb, he worked at the General Public Hospital "King Alexander I" in Susak as a secondary doctor of medicine and later as an assistant at the Internal Department. In 1940 dr Kucic became the specialist of Internal medicine. Until August 1943 he worked at Susak and Rijeka Department of Internal Medicine. Upon the unconditional surrender of fascist Italy in September 1943 dr Kucic joined the partisans in the National Liberation War (1941-1945) performing the most important duties at military sanitation departments. After demobilization from the Yugoslav Army in January 1946, he was appointed Head of Internal and Infectious Diseases Department in General Hospital "Susak" and in 1948 the Head of Department of Internal Medicine in General Hospital "Rijeka". In 1949 he was awarded the title "Primarius" of the Internal Medicine Department and the Director of the General Hospital "Rijeka". Dr Kucic was a prominent figure on the political and social scene. Among many of his duties in the bodies of public authorities, he was also the head of the Healthcare and Social Welfare Committee in the City Council of Rijeka. For many years he was the main organizer of the post-war public hospital health in the City and County of Rijeka. Dr Kucic was particularly responsible for the founding of the Faculty of Medicine in Rijeka in 1955. In 1958 he was elected as an assistant professor and in 1959 as an associate professor at the Department of Internal Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Rijeka. He died in Rijeka on 21 October 1961.

[The Hospital de Especialidades "Bernardo Sepúlveda Gutiérrez", and the generation of knowledge]. / El Hospital de Especialidades "Bernardo Sepúlveda Gutiérrez" y la generación del conocimiento.

The history of the Hospital de Especialidades "Bernardo Sepúlveda Gutiérrez," formerly called Hospital General del Centro Médico Nacional, has been marked by ups and downs, as well as by the development of cutting-edge medical knowledge. In this supplement we show a series of articles, whose authors belong in their entirety to that hospital.

La historia del Hospital de Especialidades "Bernardo Sepúlveda Gutiérrez", antes denominado Hospital General del Centro Médico Nacional, ha estado marcada por los avatares y por la generación de conocimiento médico de vanguardia. En el presente suplemento se ofrecen una serie de artículos cuyos autores pertenecen en su totalidad a ese hospital.

From cottage to community hospitals: Watlington Cottage Hospital and its regional context, 1874-2000.

The appearance in England from the 1850s of 'cottage hospitals' in considerable numbers constituted a new and distinctive form of hospital provision. The historiography of hospital care has emphasised the role of the large teaching hospitals, to the neglect of the smaller and general practitioner hospitals. This article inverts that attention, by examining their history and shift in function to 'community hospitals'within their regional setting in the period up to 2000. As the planning of hospitals on a regional basis began from the 1920s, the impact of NHS organisational and planning mechanisms on smaller hospitals is explored through case studies at two levels. The strategy for community hospitals of the Oxford NHS Region--one of the first Regions to formulate such a strategy--and the impact of that strategy on one hospital, Watlington Cottage Hospital, is critically examined through its existence from 1874 to 2000.

["Battlefield of love": the Fronberg-Hospital of the Deaconry Motherhouse Kaiserswerth]. / "Der Kampfplatz der Liebe": Das Fronberg-Krankenhaus der Kaiserswerther Diakonie.

In historical research on late 19th-century Germany, in general, as well as in the historiography of medicine, the General Hospital is typically described as located in industrial towns and cities. In order to complement this picture this paper discusses the foundation (in 1888) and the early years of the "Fronberg-Hospital" of the Deaconry Motherhouse Kaiserswerth. The small town of Kaiserswerth, with nearly 2500 inhabitants around 1900, was located midway between the two industrial towns of Duisburg and Düsseldorf. My historical analysis extends to the background of this situation, the beginnings of social insurance, including health insurance, and the eminent significance of denominational quarrels in the history of Imperial Germany up to the First World War.

Reforming hospital nursing: the experiences of Maria Machin.

The reform of hospital nursing in the last quarter of the nineteenth century brought nursing leaders into conflict with the gendered and class bound structure of Victorian society. The experiences of Maria Machin are used in this article as an example of the barriers nursing leaders had to overcome in order to establish a competent nursing service. While Machin was eminently successful in improving patient care and expanding the knowledge base of her nurses, she could not change the perceptions of nursing which the public at large held. At the beginning of the nineteenth century hospital nurses had been essentially cleaning women who gave some of the less important nursing care. They formed a cheap service which many hospital governors considered a relatively low priority in the overall operation of the hospital. This view of nursing persisted long after the reformers had made nursing into something quite different. Machin's nursing career also illustrates how nursing participated in a major aspect of British imperialism, the export of professional expertise and administrative skills as well as the way nursing fitted into the rise of the new professionalism.

Consultation-liaison psychiatry: how far have we come?

This article takes stock of how far the field of consultation-liaison psychiatry has come since its inception in the 20th century. In order to do this, we review its past in terms of its knowledge base in psychosomatic medicine and in terms of its practice at the bedside in the general hospital setting. We also offer a contemporary account of the field and finish with a subjective view of the opportunities and pitfalls faced during the next phase of consultation-liaison psychiatry in the 21st century.

[Brief history of hospital care in Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico]. / Escudriñando la historia de la atención hospitalaria en Tapachula, Chiapas.

This paper presents the history of hospital care in Tapachula, Chiapas. Hospital services began 100 years ago. At present there is one government hospital, hospitals of the Social Security systems, private hospitals and one hospital of the Mexican Red Cross. Hospital services have been oriented to attend labor and delivery, infectious diseases, malnutrition and accidents.

[The opening of the first real sick-hospital in Copenhagen: Kommunehospitalet]. / Oprettelsen af Københavns første egentlige syge-hospital: Kommunehospitalet.

On the 19th, September 1863 the first real sick-hospital, Kommunehospitalet, opened in Copenhagen. This paper contains aspects of the temporary results and reflections from a interdisciplinary investigation between a pharmacist, a doctor and a ethnologist of the conditions at the opening the hospital. The investigation is based on the case records of the 89 patients who were recorded as admitted to the hospital on the opening day. The case records contain information not only of the diagnosis and treatments but offer the possibility to elucidate aspects of every day life both inside and outside the hospital, especially among the working-class and the poor who constitute the majority of the patients. Among the elucidated aspects is, that the patients are placed in the common ward as much according to their social status as to the diagnosis. Most of the admitted patients suffered from veneral diseases even though this category of patients had caused serious hesitation regarding the damage they could make to the reputation of and wish to create a new image for the hospital.

[A failed attempt at establishing the public policlinic in Cracow in 1907]. / Nieudana proba zalozenia Powszechnej Polikliniki Krakowskiej w roku 1907.

The medical circles were reluctant to the publication of the Statutes of the Society of the Public Policlinic in Cracow; according to the concept of the Policlinic's founders, its purpose was to give free medical assistance to the sick, further education of its members in medical problems and performance of chemical research. The Society was to be joined by professors and assistant professors of the Jagiellonian University as well as hospital ward and laboratory heads. At the meetings held, the physicians objected to having a policlinic established because its activity might threaten the material existence of the physicians themselves. Similarly, prestige aspects spoke as well against having the Policlinic founded because the medical elite were to be treated there, constituting thus a hard competition to the remaining physicians. A strong counteraction of most physicians rendered the performance of this idea impossible.

[Financial development of the Munich General Hospital 1830-1894]. / Die finanzielle Entwicklung des Allgemeinen Krankenhauses zu München 1830-1894.

The Munich General Hospital is typical for the modern hospital developing in the late 18th century. Before the introduction of the compulsory Imperial Health Insurance in 1884 in many southern states of Germany municipals installed some kind of insurance system to take care for their poor. These insurance systems were intended to provide hospital care for the lower classes and give the hospital a new source of income. The Munich General Hospital has been founded in 1813 and a voluntary insurance scheme was installed. This paper examines the financial development of the Munich General Hospital in the long run through studying its expenditures and sources of income from 1830/31 until 1894. Especially the effects of the various kinds of insurance schemes from the first voluntary insurance system (1813) until the compulsory Imperial Health Insurance (1884) on the hospital's financial capacity have been analysed. Until the 1830s the hospital struggled with serious financial problems because the founding fund was too small for the high number of non-paying patients. This situation was aggravated through the failure of the first insurance system which was subsequently reformed in 1832. With the new mandatory insurance scheme and the revenues of the founding fund the hospital reached in the following decades a high level of independence from traditional financing sources such as donations and public subsidies. The compulsory Imperial Health Insurance reinforced this trend. In consequence the hospital did not need any municipal subsidies to finance its regular expenditures.

Flexner and the whole-time system: the second Flexner report and the whole-time system in American academic surgery.

BACKGROUND: Reform in medical education started in the mid 19th century and continued through the early decades of the 20th century. Both Carnegie and Rockefeller foundation monies were applied to the process of attempting to improve medical education. The University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, associated with a municipal hospital and a municipally owned university, offered a model for improvements in medical education in other municipal hospitals. The attempt to institute the "whole-time" ("full-time" salaried, "University") system, and restructure the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine along radical lines hitherto unknown in much of the country and in particular to the city of Cincinnati, disturbed the relationship of the College of Medicine with the community and echoes to this day. The tensions between the "University-salaried" professors of clinical surgery and the practitioners attempting to practice at the institution have abated but remain unresolved. CONCLUSION: The history of the establishment of the full-time chairs, including the Christian R. Holmes Chair of Surgery, led to a rethinking of the role that the full-time system might play in American medical education.