Professors of internal diseases at Polish universities in 1918-1939.

The article outlines some basic facts about Polish professors who specialized in the treatment of internal diseases. The analysis concerns the scientists who held professorial chairs between 1918 and 1939. The findings have been presented in the context of university medical departments. In Poland, in the interwar period, a total of thirteen professors held chairs of internal medicine. Some of them had been awarded their chairs before 1918. Most of them were successful researches. Professors Antoni Gluziński and Witold Orłowski were particularly recognized in the scientific world. Gluziński held chairs at Jagiellonian University and then at the University of Warsaw. Orłowski worked at Jan Kazimierz University in Lvov and then moved to the University of Warsaw. In the interwar period, Polish departments of medicine were one of the largest when compared to other departments. Consequently, clinics of internal medicine (attributed to such chairs) were the largest within departments of medicine in terms of the staff employed. For this reason most universities decided to divide such clinics into two independent chairs.