Medical technologies and the social strategies of two surgical instrument makers in Denmark and Sweden, 1870–1900

Technical professions were important agents in medicine and its knowledge production in the nineteenth century. This paper will look more closely at two examples of the social strategies used by Danish surgical instrument maker Camillus Nyrop and his Swedish colleague, Max Stille respectively. Although the work of these two instrument makers attracted attention both within their respective countries as well as internationally, and they were regular fixtures in medical circles, their contributions have merited little academic interest thus far. By examining the social strategies used by nineteenth century technicians, in this case surgical instrument makers, we might better understand the interrelationships between technical professions and physicians in the knowledge production of modern medicine and the interplay between medicine and commerce.

Innovations in healthcare of peripheral regions – Greifswald as incubator for the Baltic Sea region?

Health care systems are called to reconcile at least three conflicting goals: They have to provide sufficient health care services of appropriate quality for the population, keep the cost at an affordable level, and make services accessible for every member of the society. Achieving all three of these goals at the same time is sometime like squaring the circle: Good ser- vices accessibly for everybody even in peripheral regions require resources and generate costs which – too often – seem inappropriate for many politicians and members of the society. At the same time, high quality ser- vices are only affordable with centralised systems where the number of patients permits sufficient routine. However, this centralisation means that services are not available close of the places where people live, in particu- lar in rural areas. The only answer are innovations of health care provision which increase the efficiency of the system and make it possible to achieve all objectives at the same time. The district of Vorpommern-Greifswald has developed, adopted, and implemented innovations in the field of telemedicine, emergency services, drones, and cross-border health care, which have already proven relevant for the region. These innovations are ready to diffuse into other countries of the Baltic Sea region. At the same time, innovations from other countries could be fruitful innovations seedlings for the district in North-Eastern Germany. However, this would require overcoming a number of financial, cultural, and personal barriers in order to improve the health care situation even in peripheral regions. This paper discusses the “magic triangle” of cost, quality, and accessi- bility as the fundamental goal system of a health care system. Furthermore, it presents some insights into the innovations implemented in the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald. Finally, it discusses a model of innovation adop- tion and potentials entering into an adoption and adaption process within the Baltic Sea region.

RSU Anatomy Museum: a historical collection with a contemporary approach

On 16 June 2021, the renovated RSU Anatomy Museum opened its doors to visitors. The museum exhibitions are based on the first anat- omy training collection in Latvia. The collection was created in the Riga Anatomical Theatre in the 1920s and 1930s and used to train future medical specialists. Nowadays, the museum is open to everyone. Everyone is invited to look into what is usually seen only by anatomists or surgeons and to discover the diversity of human bodies. Skeletons, embryos, bones, body parts and organs – their structure and variations, healthy and afflicted with disease. Everything is real here. The museum is located at 9 Kronvalda Boulevard, in the Anatomical Theatre building complex.

History of Medicine in the Baltic Sea region: Introductory remarks by the Editor

A new “Hanseatic League”, “a global hotspot for health”, “one of the most innovative science macro-regions in the world”? In the fields of life science and technology, politicians and managers of current large research projects describe the Baltic Sea region as a hub of cutting-edge research. How did these images emerge?

Alexandra Kollontai and three Swedish female physicians – friendly relationships around the Soviet ambassador in Stockholm 1930–1945

Alexandra Kollontai was the Soviet ambassador to Sweden in the years 1930 to 1945. In Sweden she gained many friends in the peace- and women’s movement and among these were several female physicians. This article describes and investigates the friendships between Swedish female physicians and Alexandra Kollontai. The three physicians focused on are Ada Nilsson (1872–1964), Andrea Andreen (1888–1972) and Nanna Svartz (1890–1986). It is found that Kollontai and the physicians became proper friends, although initial contacts between them had political or medical causes.

Centennial Congress of the International Society for the History of Medicine

The International Society for the History of Medicine (ISHM) is a non-profit international society with the aim to assist and support the historical study of all questions relating to the medical and allied sciences. The Society stimulates and oversees the organisation of periodic international congresses in the history of medicine. (ISHM Statutes, 2007) For the first time in the one hundred year history of the ISHM, the con- gress took place in Latvia.

A Baltic Sea region student poster exhibition on cooperation and conflict in medicine

Which topics and developments in the field of medicine and health sci- ences are relevant for the Baltic Sea macro-region in the future? How can a wider public be involved in the discourses of cooperation within the Baltic Sea region?

German-Polish scienti c cooperations in divided Germany – Janusz Korczak associations in East and West Germany since the 1970s

The Polish-Jewish paediatrician, pedagogue and writer Janusz Korczak (1878/79–1942) has not been honoured in Germany until many years after his death in Treblinka in 1942. The German division led to the development of two separate German academic associations since the end of the 1970s, which aimed – under different political circumstances – to popularise and disseminate the memory of Korczak and his works. Both associations estab- lished personal and academic contacts and cooperations with the Polish Korczak Committee, whose history can be traced back to 1946, when contemporary witnesses of Korczak founded the Committee to honour Korczak’s memory. This paper aims to reconstruct the early scientific cooperations of both German Korczak associations with Polish scientists and the Polish Korczak Committee. While in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) major research stimuli emanated at the faculties of education at Gießen and Wuppertal, in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) a first publicly perceived research focus crystallised at the only existing, state-controlled publishing house for schoolbooks (Volk und Wissen – Volkseigener Verlag) in East- Berlin. In the early 1980s, the work of the young associations was focused on biographical and bibliographical studies. Here it becomes obvious, that Korczak studies in East and West were substantially inspired and advanced by the then still living contemporary eyewitnesses of Korczak and their personal contacts to individual members of the existing Korczak associations. The history of the international Korczak bibliography is a characteristic example, that shows, how closely contemporary witnessing is linked to scientific research on Korczak.

Changing objects of therapeutics – how neurasthenia a ected scienti c transfer between Germany and Sweden

This paper discusses the transfer of knowledge between Germany and Sweden within the therapeutics of neurasthenia around 1900. The latter was a worldwide spread disease phenomenon and involved such a variance of symptoms that it is retrospectively considered a cultural condition that was strongly linked to medical fashions. As causes of transfer and change in therapeutics, cultural move- ments have been little explored in research so far. Based on the analysis of transfers and an evaluation of medical objects, the following text aims to show the entanglement between Germany and Sweden on both a sci- entific and societal level as well as their impact on the therapy of neur- asthenia. In the popularity of the Swedish medical treatment method of medicomechanics in Germany, this connection becomes particularly obvi- ous. The enhancements and imitations of the objects used in mechanical gymnastics represent a scientific transfer on the level of medicine, which took place in parallel with cultural trends, political changes and technological knowledge. The constant change which the objects of neurasthenia therapy were subject to, was marked by the paradoxical use of a technology-affine medicine to treat a technology-induced disease. With the rediscovery of naturopathic methods within the new body culture, however, the Zander apparatuses underwent an evolution. The Swedish objects have been adopted by users from merely medical technology into new contexts of action – for example, as tools for self-optimisation of the body.