[The establishment of Medical school in Zagreb in World War I]

World War I irrevocably changed the face of the world, including Croatia and its capital Zagreb. While between 1880 and 1910 Zagreb became a modern European city, World War I (1914-1918) was marked by new municipal regulations that overturned the everyday life of the city. Social conditions reached catastrophic proportions, especially in the later years of the war. Soldiers and refugees swarmed the city, and famine and the Spanish flu epidemic hit it hard. In such harsh social and economic circumstances Milan Rojc, head of the Theology and Education Department and three doctors from the Sisters of Mercy Hospital, namely, Theodor Wikerhauser, Miroslav Čačković pl. Vrhovinski, and Dragutin Mašek, finally started the School of Medicine in December 1917. The School had formally been founded 43 years before, on January 5th, 1874., when the Croatian Parliament, passed the law concerning the establishment of the University, which was to have four faculties: Theology, Philosophy, Law, and Medicine.