[Movement for the improvement of professional qualifications of Polish physicians from 1805 to 1952. Society and courses]

The article focuses on the development of the post-graduate training of physicians from 1805 to 1952. The time-frame opens with the emergence of the first Polish society of physicians, the Wilno Society of Physicians, in 1805, and ends with the establishment in Warsaw of the Institute for Qualification Improvement and Specialisation of Medical Personnel in 1952. In the first part of his article, the author presents the development of medical societies and in the second--the formation of institutionalised post-graduate training. Two annexes have been appended: a listing of general-medical and specialist societies according to their year of emergence and illustrations complementing the text.