Evolution of epidemiological thought in medicine taking into account the evolution of Polish epidemiology in the 20th century.

Abstract

Communicable diseases have accompanied humanity since the beginning of its existence. The first descriptions of diseases appeared in the 8th century B.C. in the Iliad, Homer. Epidemics of communicable diseases were often described in social context by poets, historians, and chroniclers. Medicine as a science until the 19th century could not provide answers concerning the aetiology of epidemic diseases or propose therapies with measurable benefits. For centuries the fight against epidemics was the duty of administrative services. Quarantine, isolation (including forced isolation), sanitary cordons, and disinfection procedures involving the moxibustion, burning of objects, clothing and bodies, etc. were introduced very early on. The knowledge of practical measures taken during repeated epidemics of various communicable diseases in Europe laid the foundations for the development of social medicine in the 18th century. In the 19th century, methods such as statistics, comparison of patient groups, mathematics and others were introduced to assess the effectiveness of prophylactic and therapeutic measures. In the 19th century it became possible to distinguish a new science - epidemiology. The missing element was the so-called "bacteriological breakthrough". After the discovery and description of bacteria, there was a tumultuous development of bacteriology, vaccines were created and huge financial resources were allocated to bacteriological institutes. After extensive use of chemotherapeutics and antibiotics, it turned out in the mid-20th century that the mortality from communicable diseasesis statistically lower in some countries than in others.In the 1940s, population-based cardiological studies using epidemiological patterns were introduced in the United States, and in the 1950s epidemiological congresses worldwide accepted that it was reasonable for epidemiology to investigate the occurrence and causes of communicable and non-communicable diseases. In Poland, in 1964, at the 4th Congress of the Polish Society of Epidemiologists and Doctors of Infectious Diseases in Cracow, a decision was made to extend epidemiological studies to non-communicable diseases.