Rola społeczna aptek jezuickich w dawnej Rzeczypospolitej

The article presents the social role of Jesuit pharmacies in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth based on the sources of religious provenance and inventories of Jesuit colleges drawn up as a result of the dissolution of the Society of Jesus in 1773. In the first part, the author analyzes the ecclesiastical and secular legislation and its impact on the activities of Jesuit pharmacies. Canon law did not forbid clergymen to deal with medicine, but only limited the possibility of obtaining academic education in this field and conducting surgical procedures. By adopting these rules, Jesuit legislation placed the main emphasis on superiors’ control over the finances of pharmacies and limited the sale of drugs to protect the order from being accused of unfair competition by the townspeople. In the context of state pharmaceutical law, the privilege of June 30, 1662, which allowed for the liberation of journeymen by Jesuit pharmacists, was of great importance. In this way, a path of professional education in the field of pharmacy under the management of the Society, an alternative to the guild system, was created. The second part of the article discusses the social factors that favoured the establishment of monastic pharmacies. Particularly noteworthy is the uneven distribution of Jesuit pharmacies in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. While in Royal Prussia the Jesuits did not run pharmacies to avoid conflicts with the Protestant bourgeoisie, in the eastern borderlands of the Polish-Lithuanian state, Jesuit pharmacies were often the only institutions of this type. The third part of the work presents the financial situation of Jesuit pharmacies. They had significant income, but also required considerable investments related to the purchase of raw materials and equipment in the Baltic ports. The fourth part of the article concerns the social scope of the activity of Jesuit pharmacists, who not only provided medicines to the poor, but also treated nobles, magnates and high church dignitaries. Not being obliged by guild regulations, apart from preparing medicines, they also diagnosed them, performed minor surgical procedures and assisted women during childbirth. The last part of the article discusses drugs and raw materials in terms of their availability to the broadly understood clientele. The offer of Jesuit pharmacies included both cheap products derived from the local flora, intended for the treatment of the poor, and expensive raw materials from abroad. Moreover, among the medical matter there were preparations for women and infants, as well as for people suffering from syphilis. In the end, the author emphasizes the centrality of pharmacies in the Jesuit pastoral strategy. Thanks to their high level, pharmacies not only corresponded to the ideal of mercy, but also contributed to gaining the favour and trust of representatives of social elites. In this context, the dissolution of the Society is an important turning point not only in cultural and religious life, but also in the history of medicine and pharmacy in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Tylko słabość czy już choroba? Zabłocki — poeta o polskim zaniechaniu

The paper focuses on several poems by Franciszek Zabłocki (or more precisely: poems unanimously attributed to this poet), written during the session of the Great Sejm and in various ways: using irony, but also the language proper to sharp name satire — referring to the phenomenon that due to their content could be seen in terms of a disease that consumed the elite of the Republic of Poland. This disease is an omission. The ways of thinking and (dis)acting behind this word are shown by Zabłocki as part of the penetrating diagnosis of the Polish reality of the last decades of the 18th century, characteristic of this writer, as well as in the perspective of the resulting threats to both Polish statehood and the morale of society.

Epidemie i choroby w doniesieniach polskiej prasy rękopiśmiennej z drugiej połowy XVIII w.

The advancement of medical knowledge in Europe and Poland of the Enlightenment did not completely eliminate the recurring epidemics of infectious diseases. The plague, which gave way from Western Europe to reappear on Polish soil several times in the second half of the 18th century. The study is devoted to the problem of presenting epidemics and diseases to the public, or rather to the process of informing the public about them, also about other human diseases, such as typhus or smallpox, but also mental ailments in the so-called written newspapers, edited cyclically for specific recipients. It was a characteristic information medium that existed alongside the titles of the printed press. For this reason, apart from the analysis of the dominant narrative of the handwritten press, reference was also made to reports of its printed counterpart during the great plague epidemic of the early 1770s. The newspaper information concerned mainly the specter of the plague threat from the south-eastern borderlands of the country, mainly the areas of Podolia or Volyn, which, however, triggered preventive measures and quarantine even in Warsaw, but also descriptions of local outbreaks of this deadly disease. The first was also mentioned reports on vaccinations. Epizooties, mainly mass cattle sickness, are discussed separately.

Na tropie polskiej encyklopedii, czyli o wzorcu publikacji ogólnoinformacyjnych w końcu XVIII w. i I poł. XIX w.

The article deals with the issue of Polish encyclopedism of the 18th and 19th centuries against the background of the European Baroque and Enlightenment trends. The phenomenon of the encyclopaedia by B. Chmielowski, I. Krasicki, F.S. Jezierski was analysed in the text. These were works that did not follow a specific and consistent pattern of encyclopaedic publications, were not popular and did not occupy a permanent place in Polish science and literature. Other ephemeral encyclopaedia initiatives taken into account by the author were undertaken without due patronage, and — as research has shown — were secondary and amateur publications. Some attempts, such as the Encyklopedia powszechna. Zbiór wiadomości dla wszystkich stanów of the Glücksbergs from 1839, or the Mała Polska Encyklopedia by S. Plater did not manage to achieve success. Only the creation of S. Orgelbrand’s Encyklopedia powszechna in 1859 filled a significant gap in the Polish publishing and writing “market”. The article also takes into account the statements of the creators and authors of the encyclopaedia regarding the patterns they used for creating such works, and a partial analysis of the megastructure, microstructure and publishing framework of these works.

Zmiana postrzegania melancholii w XVIII wieku i jej nowe odmiany przedstawione w dziełach literackich epoki

Until the 18th century, melancholy functioned in people’s consciousness like a disease or a genetic condition. During the Enlightenment, some changes allowed to perceive it as emotional states, without any medical connotations. Among the many works, in which melancholy is mentioned, one can find several types of it, although everyone describing it, treated it in a personal way. A few of the most common new terms are sweet melancholy (douce mélancolie), boredom (ennui ), vapours (vapeurs), spleen, consomption, reverie (rêverie). Thanks to the sensitivity that was fashionable in the 18th century, emotional dilemmas were perceived not only negatively, and sometimes even desirable.

Zwłoki jako przedmiot

The author shows how the breakthrough that took place in medicine, especially in surgery and anatomy at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, shifted to the perception of human corpses. Public autopsies and demonstrations of electroplating found their reflection in the literature, contributed to the development of painting techniques, but most of all within the reach of the desacralization of the corpses and changes in morals.

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and the Ubiquity of Harmonies

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814), who is remembered today primarily for his novel Paul and Virginie, was mainly interested in showing the grandeur of God through his investigations of nature. He viewed nature from the teleological perspective: everything in it has some reason and the human task is to detect this reason. He provided hundreds of examples of such reasons, on many occasions exposing himself to derision. The article shows the importance of orderliness of nature, as it manifests itself in interlocking harmonies, as the way he followed to establish the theological conclusion regarding the existence and the attributes of God.

Drezno w relacjach polskich osiemnastowiecznych peregrynantów. Rekonesans .

The article analyses descriptions, memories, and notes on Dresden found in eighteenth-century accounts of Polish travellers. The overarching research objective is to capture the specificity of the way of presenting the city. The ways that Dresden is described are determined by genological diversity of texts, different ways of narration, the use of rhetorical repertoire, and the time of their creation. There are two dominant ways of presenting the city: the first one foregrounds the architectural and historical values, the second one revolves around social life and various kinds of games (redoubts, performances).

KAPŁAN OŚWIECONY

The article is a fragment of a larger study, entitled Polish Project. Enlightenment in the First Republic of Poland (in preparation). Benedict Chmielowski’s New Athens is an extremely important text for the development of Polish culture in the eighteenth century, revealing the essence of the functioning of the “enlightened unenlightenment”. This term, which is more and more often used, is employed to denote the phenomena previously described as “enlightened Sarmatism”. New historical research makes it necessary to change the previous understanding of Sarmatism in a quite significant way, limiting the use of this concept when describing cultural phenomena of the eighteenth century. New Athens is a good example of the application of the method of cultural “enlightened unenlightenment”, and the article tries to bring closer the basic determinants of this method. This is important, especially since shortly after the publication of Chmielowski’s work, in 1769, Stanisław Konarski created the final theoretical form of the Polish Enlightenment, different from the unenlightenment, but also from European practices.

« Almanach des honnêtes gens » (1788) de Sylvain Maréchal, ou penser un calendrier révolutionnaire avant la Révolution

The article presents the history and analyses the form of Almanac des Honnêtes Gens [Almanac of Good People] by Sylvain Maréchal (1750–1803), published a year before the Revolution. This work is pioneering in relation to the revolutionary calendar of 1793 — it proposes a very similar idea of breaking with the Christian calendar and introducing a new system of values and for measuring time in human history. In his Almanac, Sylvain Maréchal replaces the names of saints and patrons of the Catholic Church with those of philosophers, artists, writers, and politicians who, because of their lives and works, deserve eternal memory of their posterity. The idea of “new saints”, symbols of human wisdom and the power of the spirit, anticipates the dechristianisation movement and the idea of a “new time” that was soon to be promoted by the Revolution.