Maritime and undersea medicine in Croatia and the world: A historical review

Abstract:

Maritime medicine in Croatia has been developing since the Middle Ages. This is evidenced by the founding of the world’s first quarantine in Lazareti in 1377, records of ship disinfection, meat canning and standardized ship’s medicine boxes. Many physicians working in naval schools and during the 18th and 19th centuries wrote several textbooks on ship hygiene and medicine. As for diving, the earliest records are those of Krapanj sponge divers, who have been diving since 1700, and since 1893 they’ve been using the classic underwater suit. Croats dived in the Austro-Hungarian Navy. For the pioneer of undersea medicine we consider Karlo Bauman, who gathered all previous knowledge in this field in his work „Physiology of Diving“, but the most important development occurred after the founding of the Institute of Naval Medicine in Split under the leadership of Prof. Stracimir Gošović, MD.

Key words:
Croatia; history; maritime medicine; undersea medicine