[Meetings in Petersburg of doctor-poet S. Rudansky and poet-painter T. Shevchenko].

While his studying in the Medical Surgery Academy of Petersburg, engaging himself in literary creation and being a patriot of Ukrainian culture, S. Rudansky might meet Taras Shevchenko in a many literary soirees in which the poet-painter took part. T. Shevchenko read satirical poems by S. Rudansky. While his living in Crimea, S. Rudansky remained fervid propagandist of T. Shevchenko's works, metwith many friends and close friends of the poet-painter.

[John McCrae, physician and poet of "In Flanders Fields"]. / John McCrae, arts en dichter vanIn Flanders Fields.

During the Second Battle at Ypres (1915), the Canadian medical officer John McCrae was situated in an Advanced Dressing Station in Boezinge, Belgium. Heavily influenced by the suffering of the war he wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields" in May 1915. In this poem he writes about the fallen soldiers who will not rest, until others have taken over the torch of the battle. The poem has become particularly well known in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. For army administration, soldiers and their families this poem meant a call for more financial support and material goods to win the war. The poppy, which takes centre stage in the poem, became a worldwide symbol of the sacrifice of soldiers on the battlefield, but more recently has itself become the subject of controversy.

[T. Shevchenko in biography of physician, ethnographer and traveller M. Myklukho-Maklai].

The biography of the doctor, N. Miklukho-Maklay, a world scientist, anthropologist, ethnographer and travaller has Ukrainian roots. N. Miklukho-Maklay himself and his father knew and was interested in work of T. Shevchenko. N. Miklukho-Maklay and T. Shevchenko spoke out against colonial policy and social inequality: N. Miklukho-Maklay against racism and T. Shevchenko against the serfdom as a form of slavery.

[Military physician Ie. Rudykovs'kyi as a friend of T. Shevchenko].

The article shows the course of life and occupation in medicine field of the military physician, E. Rudikovsky, who stroke up an acquaintance with Taras Shevchenko in Kyiv in 1843.

[Physicians participating in the Crimean War (1853-1856) in the circle of T. H. Shevchenko].

The article considers short historical biographical events on physicians taking part in 1853-1856 Crimean War and who were on friendly terms with the famous Ukrainian poet T. H. Shevchenko.

AVICENNA'S MEDICAL DIDACTIC POEM: URJUZEHTEBBI.

Historical research shows that many physicians experienced in medical sciences are also talented in art, literature and poetry. Avicenna was a sage who was skilled in poetry in addition to philosophy and medicine. He wrote two different types of poetry: those meant to be enjoyed for their literary qualities of novelty and imagination, and his didactic Urjuzeh. Didactic poems are different from poetry evoked by imagination and feeling. In didactic poetry, the poets want to learn science and philosophy, whether spiritual, ethical or practical to the readers. Rhyme and poetry were often used for scientific writing in Avicenna's era, and were considered a method for memorizing scientific information and raising students' interest in difficult scientific concepts. Verse was used to simplify the didactic content, ease memorization and make difficult scientific issues more attractive. In medieval Persia, students of medicine had learned the basics of philosophy before starting medical courses. Poetry could help the students memorize the poem itself in combination with its meaning, in a way that was better and easier than prose. Avicenna's masterpiece, UrjuzehTebbi, comprises a perfect course in traditional Persian medicine in rhyming text written in Arabic. This great work was translated into Persian at the research centre for traditional medicine and history of medicine. We hope that the Persian translation of Urjuzeh Tebbi will allow students and experts to better appreciate the role of didactic poems in compiling and transmitting the concepts of Iranian medicine.

'The chearful haunts': John Armstrong (1709-1779), physician, poet, satirist and leveller of medical knowledge.

John Armstrong, the first honours graduate of the University of Edinburgh School of Medicine, was famous in his day for a lengthy didactic poem entitled The Art of Preserving Health (1744). He is now obscure except to scholars specializing in the 18th century and, when discussed at all, often dismissed as a failed physician who wrote mediocre poetry in a quest for money and fame. A new exegesis by Adam Budd exhumes Armstrong as an original voice who offered timely and reassuring advice to Britons as they braced for another epidemic of plague; who depicted illness through the lens of a vulnerable and sympathetic physician, and who was perhaps above all else a leveller of medical knowledge. Elaborating on Budd's thesis, it would seem that Armstrong, a complicated man, has frequently been misread and was in some ways ahead of his time.

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963): physician-writer and "godfather of avant garde poetry".

William Carlos Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winning physician-writer, was born in Rutherford, New Jersey, where he practiced medicine until he was incapacitated by a stroke at age 68. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Williams trained in New York City and Leipzig, Germany, settling in Rutherford in 1909. Doctor Williams revolutionized American poetry by rejecting traditional conventions of rhyme and meter, and he masterfully used "American" English-brusque, colloquial, and incisive-in his poetry. Williams is recognized as one of the most original poets of the 20th century. His medical life sometimes trivialized, Williams was a serious student of medicine and considered himself "in the front lines, in the trenches." He regarded art and medicine as "two parts of a whole," and the intimate doctor-patient interface proved a powerful inspiration for his writing. Dr Williams was a physician of immense integrity and dedication; he regarded allegiance to humanism as important as excellence in medical science. Prolific in various genre, Dr William Carlos Williams attained belated recognition in spite of astonishing productivity and originality. His stature and influence has steadily increased since his death in 1963, and Dr Williams is now considered "the most important literary doctor since Chekhov."

Robert Seymour Bridges OM: poet, physician and philosopher.

There has not been an English poet more interested in prosody nor physician more taken to medicine for its human contact, nor philosopher who lived closer to the tenets of his belief, than Robert Bridges (1844-1930).

[William Carlos Williams--a poet of everyday life]. / Doktor William Carlos Williams--hverdagens poet.

The physician William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was one of the most important poets in USA in the 20th century. This article provides some biographical data, examples of his poems and extracts from his autobiography, in which he discusses the relationship between medical practice and poetry.

[Poet-physicians in German literature]. / Dichterärzte in der deutschen Literatur.

Starting with standards arising from the relationship between medicine and art in classical antiquity, biblical tradition and teutonic-pagan antiquity, this article roams through german literature from the Middle Ages up to the 20th century, from Hildegard of Bingen to Gottfried Benn and Alfred Döblin, guided by the question, how strongly medical knowledge and medical practise are reflected in the poetry of writing physicians. Individual dispositions and epoque-specific features are discussed. Special attention is given to Paul Fleming and Angelus Silesius, Albrecht von Haller and Friedrich Schiller, romanticism and Georg Büchner.