Research Club of Physicians of the University of Lviv (1907–1914)

At the University of Lviv, restored in the year 1817, opening the Faculty of Medicine was not permitted by Austrian authorities due to financial considerations. It was no sooner than in the year 1894 that the several-year-long Polish efforts within this scope brought about the desired results. The academic personnel in the first years of the activity of the Faculty of Medicine was constituted by Poles educated at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, and, moreover, by Poles working at other academic centres in Europe. To Lviv, the professors and assistant professors of medicine from Prague, Vienna, Marburg, Innsbruck, Moscow and Warsaw arrived. The first group of students was composed of 95 males: Poles, Jews and Ukrainians. The first four women to have studied Medicine were admitted in the year 1900. They were: Maria Matylda Kalmus, Matylda Lateiner-Mayerhofer, Fanny Fuchs (all of whom were Jews) and Maria Jasienicka (Ukrainian). The first student organisation, namely: Society of Mutual Aid of the Students of Medicine, was established in the course of the first year after commencing instruction in medicine. In the year 1903, it was transformed into the Library of the Students of Medicine. Among its members, there were Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian students. In the year 1907, the ensuing split and secession in the oganisation existing thus far resulted in the formation of the Club of Physicians. It was exclusively Poles that were the members of the new organisation. The split was caused by ethnic and political conflicts connected with the development of ethnic consciousness. In Lviv, being a multi-national and a multi-religious city, the lack of tolerance was noticeable more and more frequently in connection with the intensive process of the formation of ethnic consciousness at the beginning of the 20th century.