EN
The paper is part of an unpublished diary by the dermatologist, Professor Henryk Mierzecki, in which he describes the poor state of the Polish health service prior to World War Two and immediately after its end. The author, who was then Head of the Department of Public Medicine at the Ministry of Health, presents the plans and actions undertaken to improve the situation. These included holding talks on the role of medical care in the workplace, and provided, in the longer run, for the establishment in Warsaw of a Clinical Institute of Labour, in premises donated by the Ministry of Health. The Institute was to house four clinics, several laboratories, a tutorial hall for 50 students and a lecture hall for 150 students. In 1949 the Ministry of Health abandoned plans to establish such an Institute in Warsaw, and transferred the task of organizing one at a later date to the National Institute of Hygiene, while Professor Mierzecki was put in charge of the Dermatology Clinic of the Medical Faculty of the University of Wroclaw. A Department of Occupational Medicine was established by Professor J. Nofer at the Medical School in Lódz in 1952, and it now functions there as the J. Nofer Institute of Occupational Medicine.