Andrija Štampar

Andrija Štampar (1938)

Andrija Štampar (born September 1, 1888 in Brodski Drenovac near Pleternica , Slavonia , Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia , † June 26, 1958 in Zagreb , Yugoslavia ) was a Yugoslavian doctor.

Live and act

Andrija Štampar grew up in Brodski Drenovac, a small village in a rural region, as the son of the village school teacher. Due to the poor hygienic conditions there was a high child mortality rate in this village, which the father, Ambroz Štampar, tried to fight against. Andrija Štampar attended high school in Vinkovci from 1898 to 1906 . From 1906 he studied medicine at the University of Vienna and he completed this course on December 23, 1911 with a dissertation. Already as a student he became interested in health policy issues and he began to publish a series called the Public Health Library dealing with prevention and education issues. In Vienna he also heard lectures on social medicine from Ludwig Teleky . From January 1, 1912 to August 8, 1913, Štampar worked as a doctor in the Karlovac City Hospital . By order of the Prefect of Požega District , he was appointed District Doctor of Nova Gradiška in 1913 .

After the First World War, Yugoslavia was largely destroyed and epidemics threatened the population. In this situation, Štampar was entrusted with the management of the hygiene department of the Yugoslav Ministry of Health in Belgrade . By 1930, the ministry had built more than 250 health-related institutions, from central research and administrative centers in each province to hundreds of "health centers" in the countryside. With the support of the Rockefeller Foundation , he opened a "School for Public Health" and a Hygiene Institute in Zagreb in 1927 . A special feature of the “School for Public Health” was the establishment of a “Farmers University” where villagers were trained for three to five months before they returned to their villages with basic medical knowledge. Štampar's work met with opposition in particular from medical colleagues who saw their treatment monopoly at risk. He survived two assassinations and politicians were mobilized against him.

After a monarchist dictatorship was established in Yugoslavia in 1929 , Štampar was relieved of his post as director of the Belgrade Ministry of Health in 1930. As a result, he worked for the health organization of the League of Nations and traveled from 1931 to 1933 in Europe and the USA. On behalf of the League of Nations, he worked from 1933 to 1936 in setting up the health system in China . On his return trip from China via Moscow in 1936 he met the medical historian Henry E. Sigerist , with whom he was from now on friendly and with whom he provided an overview of the Yugoslav health system in autumn 1938. From 1938 to 1939, Štampar taught at universities in the USA and Canada on hygiene and social medicine.

Health center in Lukovica 1938

In 1938, Štampar summarized his view on questions of health care in nine theses:

Informing the people is more important than establishing laws. Therefore, our work in Yugoslavia is based on just three short laws.
It is very important that a correct attitude of society on health issues is prepared.
Healthcare issues and the work that needs to be done to move them forward are not a monopoly of the medical community. Everyone without distinction should be involved. It is only through this all-encompassing collaboration that health care can be improved.
The doctor should primarily be a social worker. Individual therapy alone does not get him very far - social therapy alone leads to real gains.
In economic terms, a doctor should not be dependent on his patients, as this would hinder him in his essential tasks.
In public health, no distinction should be made between rich and poor.
It is necessary to build a health system in which the doctor chooses the patient, not the patient chooses the doctor. Only in this way can the steadily increasing number of those whose health we should protect can be taken into our care.
The doctor should be the teacher of the people.
Health system issues are more economic than humanitarian. The doctor's main workplace is where people are staying - where they live and work - and not in the laboratory or the doctor's office.

When the political situation in Yugoslavia changed again in 1939, Štampar returned to Zagreb and took over the chairs of hygiene and social medicine. 1940–1941 he was dean of the medical school. The invasion of the Wehrmacht in April 1941 led to his arrest. He was imprisoned in Graz until the liberation by the Red Army in 1945 .

In May 1945 he again became a professor at the Zagreb Medical School and director of the "School for Public Health". From 1945 to 1946 he was rector of the University of Zagreb , from 1952 to 1957 dean of the medical faculty.

Štampar was one of the founders of WHO and he was actively involved in building health systems in Afghanistan, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.

The definition of health as given in the 1946 preamble to the WHO Constitution

"State of perfect physical, mental and social well-being and not just as the absence of illness and weakness"

goes back to a suggestion by Andrija Štampar.

In 1948 he was the chairman of the first WHO general assembly in Geneva and he worked actively in the WHO until his death.

literature

Henry E. Sigerist. Yugoslavia and the XI-th International Congress of the History of Medicine. In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Baltimore, Volume 7 (1939), pp. 99-147. In it: pp. 138–147 Andrija Štampar
Henry van Zile Hyde. A tribute to Andrija Štampar, MD, 1888–1958 . In: American Journal of Public Health Nations Health December 1958; 48 (12), pp. 1578–1582, PMC 1551853 (free full text)
Theodore M. Brown and Elizabeth Fee. Andrija Štampar. Charismatic leader of Social Medicine and International Health . In: American Journal of Public Health 2006 August; 96 (8): 1383, PMC 1522122 (free full text)

Web links

Commons : Andrija Štampar - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Eva Martinovic: Andrija Štampar . In: Hubert Kolling (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon for Nursing History - Who was Who in Nursing History , Volume nine, Hpsmedia GmbH Nidda, 2020, p. 233 f.
↑ Henry E. Sigerist. Yugoslavia and the XI-th International Congress of the History of Medicine. In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Baltimore, Volume 7 (1939), p. 138
↑ Andrija Štampar. Public health in Jugoslavia . London 1938, p. 9 quoted from Henry E. Sigerist. Yuguslavia and the XI-th International Congress of the History of Medicine . In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Baltimore, Volume 7 (1939), pp. 140-141: “… (1) The education of the people is more important than laws, and for this reason our work (in Yugoslavia) is based upon three small laws only. (2) It is most important to prepare a correct attitude of society towards questions of public health. (3) The question of public health and the work done for its advancement is not a monopoly of the doctors; but everyone, without distinction, should take part in it. It is only by means of this universal co-operation that public health can improve. (4) A doctor should be mainly a social worker; he cannot go far with individual therapy alone - social therapy provides the means that can lead him to real achievement. (5) A doctor should not economically depend on his patients, because such dependence hinders him in the most fundamental of his tasks. (6) In respect of the public health no distinction should be made between the rich and the poor. (7) It is necessary to create a health organization in which the doctor shall seek out the patient, and not the patient the doctor, for it is only by so doing that the ever-increasing numbers of those whose health we should protect can be included in our care. (8) A doctor should be a teacher of the people. (9) The question of public health has more of an economic than a humanitarian significance. The chief place for a doctor's work is in the dwellings of the people - the places where men live and work - and not in laboratories or in a doctor's consulting rooms. ... "
^ Constitution of the World Health Organization, German translation (PDF; 533 kB) ("Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.")

personal data
SURNAME	Štampar, Andrija
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Yugoslav medic
DATE OF BIRTH	September 1, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH	Brodski Drenovac near Pleternica , Slavonia
DATE OF DEATH	June 26, 1958
Place of death	Zagreb

[1] Eva Martinovic: Andrija Štampar . In: Hubert Kolling (Ed.): Biographical Lexicon for Nursing History - Who was Who in Nursing History , Volume nine, Hpsmedia GmbH Nidda, 2020, p. 233 f.

[2] Henry E. Sigerist. Yugoslavia and the XI-th International Congress of the History of Medicine. In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Baltimore, Volume 7 (1939), p. 138

[3] Andrija Štampar. Public health in Jugoslavia . London 1938, p. 9 quoted from Henry E. Sigerist. Yuguslavia and the XI-th International Congress of the History of Medicine . In: Bulletin of the History of Medicine. Baltimore, Volume 7 (1939), pp. 140-141: “… (1) The education of the people is more important than laws, and for this reason our work (in Yugoslavia) is based upon three small laws only. (2) It is most important to prepare a correct attitude of society towards questions of public health. (3) The question of public health and the work done for its advancement is not a monopoly of the doctors; but everyone, without distinction, should take part in it. It is only by means of this universal co-operation that public health can improve. (4) A doctor should be mainly a social worker; he cannot go far with individual therapy alone - social therapy provides the means that can lead him to real achievement. (5) A doctor should not economically depend on his patients, because such dependence hinders him in the most fundamental of his tasks. (6) In respect of the public health no distinction should be made between the rich and the poor. (7) It is necessary to create a health organization in which the doctor shall seek out the patient, and not the patient the doctor, for it is only by so doing that the ever-increasing numbers of those whose health we should protect can be included in our care. (8) A doctor should be a teacher of the people. (9) The question of public health has more of an economic than a humanitarian significance. The chief place for a doctor's work is in the dwellings of the people - the places where men live and work - and not in laboratories or in a doctor's consulting rooms. ... "

[4] Constitution of the World Health Organization, German translation (PDF; 533 kB) ("Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.")