[Health care in Varazdin in the 17th century]

This overview brings together historical data on health services and health culture from original documents and scarce information published by historians. The seventeenth century Varazdin was a bigger town than Zagreb, and it later even took the title of the Croatian capital from Zagreb (between 1767 and 1776). The review opens with a description of old municipal hospices, specific social and public health institutions which can been traced back to 1454 and which existed throughout the 17th century. At that time, barber-surgeons, who practiced a form of medicine which involved the use of hands and medical instruments (hence the Greek name, heir meaning hand and ergon meaning work), were still active in the town. They did not have the education and skills of a physician (and some physicians were additionally trained as surgeons and/or obstetricians). There were fewer barber-surgeons in the town than in the two previous centuries, and their number was substantially falling in the 17th century. The scale eventually tipped in favour of educated physicians. In 1641, the Croatian Parliament appointed the second official country physician with permanent stay in Varazdin. Other important events are related to the development of pharmacies in the town. The review lists the names of the first pharmacists and the dates of the foundation of pharmacies. The 17th century is characterised by the threat and frequent outbreaks of plague, a disastrous pandemic disease which spread all over Europe and which did not spare Varazdin. It would strike the town at intervals of about every ten years. The authors describe steps taken by the local government to stop the spreading of the disease as well as the incompetence and lack of adequate health measures for both prevention and cure of plague at the time. There are well preserved monuments in memory of those events in the town--a votive chapel and a votive column.