The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Source of Modification of Polish Medical Historiography Cover Image

Pandemia COVID-19 jako źródło modyfikacji polskiej historiografii medycznej
The COVID-19 Pandemic as a Source of Modification of Polish Medical Historiography

Author(s): Jaromir Jeszke
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Sociology, Social history, Health and medicine and law, Present Times (2010 - today)
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: COVID-19; Polish medical historiography; historiographic paradigm

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses possible inspirations for medical historians resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The author analyzes the role of the history of medicine in the COVID-19 pandemic. This situation is understood as an opportunity for changes in Polish medical historiography in its non-classical sense. The author also investigates the narrative structures, showing how, in the context of a pandemic, such fundamental metaphors as pathogenesis, salutogenesis or pathocenosis could be used. The attention is also given to public discourse, inspiring the historian of medicine to address such notions as breakthroughs in science, the process of validating new medical knowledge during a pandemic crisis, or anti-science. The concept of pathocenosis as a theoretical framework for the scientific and public ‘COVID-related’ discourse was analyzed as a case study. The author treats this reflection as an invitation to discuss the changes in Polish medical historiography in the face of a medical crisis.

  • Issue Year: 2023
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 213-228
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Polish