First Edition of Hahnemann's Organon: Celebrating its 200th Anniversary

With this special issue, IJHDR celebrates the 200th anniversary of the first edition of Hahnemann’s Organon, published in 1810. By 1796, in a previous foundational article published in Hufeland’s prestigious Journal of Practical Medicine [1], after criticizing with fine reasoning the usual ways of studying the “curative properties of medicinal substances”, namely according to their chemical actions, their effects on animals, their external aspect or sensitive properties, their taxonomic classification, or the random use of multiple drugs by the so called empiricists, Hahnemann stated what can be regarded as one of the cornerstones of homeopathy: “The true physician, whose sole aim is to perfect his art, can avail himself of no other information respecting medicines, than – first, what is the pure action of each by itself on the human body? Second, what do observations of its action in this or that simple or complex disease teach us?” ... ... To conclude, despite uncertainties and difficulties homeopaths still have to struggle with, we can only feel grateful to Hahnemann’s countless efforts to introduce homeopathy and everything what it means in medicine history and development.

Traumatic Stress Disorders

The symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have long been recognized in medicine, history, literature, and philosophy. This chapter provides an introduction and overview to this handbook, focusing on the historical context that underlies current issues within the trauma literature. This handbook contains eight parts, focusing on classification and phenomenology; epidemiology and special populations; contributions from theory, assessment, prevention, and early intervention; treatment; and dissemination/implementation and ending with a chapter highlighting future directions. The historical underpinnings of each area are delineated, with attention to their linkage with current research. The hope for this revised edition of the Handbook of Traumatic Stress Disorders is to facilitate linkages among cross-cutting areas of study and clinical application, while providing concise, up-to-date reviews of current knowledge.

The use of radioactive substances in medicine — history and development prospects

Nuclear medicine (NM) is a medical specialty that uses radionuclides (radioactive tracers) and ionising radiation for diagnostic and therapeutic (theranostic) purposes. Nuclear medicine arose and developed at the intersection of physics, chemistry and clinical medicine. The radiation emitted by radioisotopes can consist of gamma-, beta- and alpha emission, or it’s combination. Radioisotope of choice for medical purposes should have futher requirements: low radiotoxicity, suitable type of radiation, energy and half-life (several minutes to several hours and days), and also convenient detection of gamma ray radiation. The radionuclide is part of radiopharmaceutical (RP) and acts as its indicator. RP accumulates in morphological structures, becomes a carrier of coordinated information from patient to gamma camera or other equipment and reflects the dynamics of processes occurring in the examined organ. In 2021 NM celebrates its 80th anniversary. The trajectory of NM combines modern methods of radiotheranostics and applied genomic and post-genomic technologies.

First female cardiac surgeon

For a long time, medicine was the prerogative of men, and women were not allowed to this area. And despite the prohibitions and moral values of those times, women left a mark in the history of medicine. Key words: women, medicine, history, cardiac surgery