Martin Kuhar

Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts · Department of History of Medical Sciences

RAD Croatian Academy Sciences and

The collection of Vladimir Ćepulić’s photographs named The Housing Misery in Zagreb, with wagon apartments as one of its main themes, documents the perception of tuberculosis, particularly its epidemiological aspect, between the two world wars. The representation of tuberculosis as a threat is realized in these photographs through the demonstration...

Croatia is a Central European and Mediterranean country with a long maritime border with Italy. Throughout history, it was not only goods but also knowledge and medical practices that were exchanged over its borders. Following archival sources, individual informal networks, professional publications, daily newspapers, and public lectures, we aimed...

This paper will elaborate the impact of social, political and economic processes on the formation and development of the pharmaceutical profession in Croatia until the end of the Second World War. Political axes and dominant economic theories shaped a complex history of interactions between the pharmaceutical profession and state structures, dramat...

The history of the condom, although repressed or bypassed throughout the centuries, represents an important part of our cultural history. A historical overview on how the condom was perceived by Croatian physicians and how the pharmaceutical industry advertised condoms in the first half of the 20th century is provided. The contributions on contrace...

Purpose: To demonstrate that Špišić's photographs were used as a tool in representing the strategies and public health position of orthopaedics as an emerging medical specialty in Croatia in the period from 1915 to 1917. Methods: Formal and contextual analysis of photographs included in the book How we help our invalids: Images from our orthopae...

Between the two World Wars, the pharmaceutical industry strengthened its influence within the Croatian medical community. Due to the scarcity of professional biomedical journals in the Croatian language, larger pharmaceutical companies started to publish free promotional journals, magazines, and booklets which quickly became popular. They thus succ...

The subjects of gerontology and geriatrics did not arouse stronger interest among Croatian scholars until the second half of the twentieth century. From 1952 to 1957, a number of Croatian medical experts gave lectures on gerontology at the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. Based on these lectures, in 1958 the Academy published the first book o...

Recently, the World Health Organization launched its Universal Health Coverage initiative with the aim to improve access to quality health care on a global level, without causing financial hardship to the patients. In this paper, we will identify and analyze the ideological similarities between this influential initiative and the work of one of the...

In spring 1912, 25-year-old lawyer Luka Jukić tried to assassinate the Croatian Ban and Royal Commissioner Slavko Cuvaj. This article focuses on several aspects of the trial against Jukić: first, on analysing the impact of Cesare Lombroso’s criminology in Croatia; second, on the testimony by forensic psychiatrist Ivo Žirovčić, who controversially c...

Until the works of Fran Gundrum, there was no comprehensive analysis of sexuality in Croatia. In this article, we investigate the background of Gundrum's book Sexual Health Care, the first book on sexual hygiene in Croatia. We analyzed the motivational effect venereal diseases had on writing the book, as well as the metaphoric language he used to c...

Fran Gundrum (1856-1919) was a Croatian physician, encyclopedist, and an advocate of medical enlightenment and healthy lifestyle. In order to identify and analyze Gundrum's ideas about the problems of prostitution and criminality, we studied all of his books, booklets, and articles published between 1905 and 1914. We showed that Gundrum's theories...