Abstract
Social and economical changes in Lódź transforming the town into a strong textile industry centre at the turn of 19th and 20th century stimulated the development of medical sciences and professional activity. Between 1800 and 1914 a 600-fold increase in the number of inhabitants occured - a demographic phenomenon unknown in Europe at that time. This led to specific sanitary and hygiene conditions, negatively affecting the population's health. In these social and economic conditions, with Russian occupant unwillingness to act, medical professionals and other social groups, in particular founders ot the textile industry--K. Scheibler, I. Poznanski, I. Heinzel, I. Kunitzer and others spontaneously acted to solve urgent medical problems. In this period a number of modern private and public hospitals such as neuro-psychiatric " Kochanówka" hospital, paediatric "Anna-Maria" hospital, factory-owned hospitals and other social aid centres were organised. These institutions, apart clinical activities for the society, held scientific research. A number of scientists were active in Lódź at that time: Stanisław Bartoszewicz, Józef Brudzinski, Józef Kollnski, Jan Mazurkiewicz, Witold Chodźko, Tadeusz Mogielnicki, Józef Maybaum-Marzynski, Stanislaw Serkowski, Stanislaw Skalski, Emanuel Sonnenberg and others. They were involed in new fields of medical research, such as paediatric diseases, neurological and psychiatric diseases, neoplastic diseases, infectious diseases and occupational medicine. All these activities were co-ordinated by: Lódź Medical Association, Lódź Division of the Warsaw Society of Hygiene, Industrial Medicine Assocation and Tuberculosis League. At the turn of the 19th and 20th century Lódź was listed among well known centres of modern diagnostic and therapeutic methods in the menagement of tuberculosis, childhood diseases and neuropsychiatric diseases. Professional skills and scientific activity of physicians form Lódź, their efforts in founding medical institutions to improve the sanitary conditions and hygiene in the town, medical help offered to the poor, determined the ethical values and patriotic behaviour of history of the town and were an important factor in the process obtaining the university town status by Lódź.
