So What Kind of Clinic Is This?
19 November 2024 – 16 March 2025
The suggestions of Jędrzej Śniadecki on what kind of clinic should be established both for the treatment of patients and for the practical training of medical students, inspired the idea of organising an exhibition „So what kind of clinic is this?“ The exhibition will be held in a cozy Room of curiosities of the Vilnius Picture Gallery – it will be possible to get acquainted with the medical histories of patients of Vilnius University (VU) Therapy, Surgery and Obstetrics Clinic, medical diagnostic instruments, treatment methods, scientific works of doctors of medicine who worked in clinics.
The beginning of the 19th century at Vilnius University is considered its golden age. VU at that time was one of the largest and most important institutions of higher education in Eastern Europe: with four faculties, specialists of the highest-level teaching theoretical and practical disciplines, invited from Western Europe, the Medical Institute, where gifted medical students studied for free, the newly established university clinics and dispensary, the Maternity and Vaccination Institutes, the successfully functioning and functioning Vilnius Medical Society.
Repeated bloodlettings, stimulation of profuse diarrhea and vomiting, opening of artificial ulcers on the skin using manger substances and heat, stimulation of the formation of blisters on the patient’s skin by applying ointments with cantaric powder, the use of heavy metal salts for the treatment of severely ill patients and other therapy practices were used with great confidence both in Vilnius clinics and in clinics of other Western European cities until the very end of the 19th century. In VU clinics, the first neurosurgical and other systems surgical operations were performed, a clinical – anatomical method was used, autopsies of deceased patients were performed, the clinical diagnosis is confirmed on the basis of post-mortem finds. Although various diseases in the clinics of VU of the beginning of the 19th century in most cases were considered primarily as biological, pathological phenomena, distancing themselves from metaphysical interpretations and folk superstitions, the description of some nervous diseases was still influenced by mythological and demonological interpretations, and the chisel was perceived as an endemic disease characteristic of the Lithuanian-Polish region, affecting not only the skin and its appendages, but also the nervous system, internal and other organs.
The exhibition will be accompanied by educational classes, lectures. „So what kind of clinic is this?“ – the answer to this question will be discovered by every visitor to the exhibition.
- Click here to buy an e-ticket for the exhibition
- Plan your visit
- Book a tour in English: +370 681 90329, gidai.vpg@lndm.lt
4 Didžioji st, Vilnius, Lithuania
+370 5 261 1685
vpg@lndm.lt
