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A conference of public health officers from the northern Bohemia region of the Czech Republic, with participants from other regions and institutions, was held 40 years ago in February 1982. Instead of professional issues, the programme comprised unorthodox and humorously presented themes inspired by work, life and political problems. The speeches were coloured by hyperbole, irony, fantasy and high intellect, often on the verge of political risk-taking (it was the time of the communist regime). One of the many examples: “Epidemiology will deal with human stupidity in the future. Everything indicates that it is highly contagious”. A unique conference dubbed “The greatest laugh in hygiene” is one of the unforgettable events in the history of Czech public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personalities who created essential advancement of hygiene as a medical discipline in the Czech Republic are presented in the article. Brief curricula of them and especially their professional focus are a cogent illustration of medical hygiene history and development of knowledge, which gradually became the cornerstone of health protection and promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Public Health Service in the former Czechoslovakia got started in 1952 and its development and work are documented in many sources except for the years 1951 and 1952 when the system was being prepared conceptually. According to the few documents that are available, on the establishment of the public health service, there has participated the Ukrainian professor of hygiene N. N. Litvinov from the former Soviet Union on request from the Czechoslovak government, along with Czechoslovak professors Vilém Škovránek and Pavel Macúch. Summarized is available information, however, there continues to be a minimum of authentic facts from that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professor Josef Roček, MD (1887-1946), founder and head of the Department of Hygiene at the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University (Brno, former Czechoslovakia) in the period 1921-1939, was a respected personality not only at the faculty as an outstanding teacher and scientist but also amongst the general public as a well known expert in water hygiene (drinking water supply, sewage disposal). Alongside his relentless educational and scientific activities he played a significant role in national health education. He founded the Moravian Hygiene Museum and edited the monthly “Hygiene - Personal, Public, Social”. He played a part in the development of the National Health Institute (Prague) as well as national health policy. Towards the end of his life, in the first post-war years, he suffered a false accusation of collaboration with German wartime occupants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This year marks 100 years since the birth of one of the founders of the Medical Faculty of Hygiene, the current 3rd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, prof. Karel Symon, MD. The successful beginnings and quality instruction in the following years was due to a number of experts - university teachers. Prof. Karel Symon, MD, belonged to the prominent personalities of the time. The hundredth anniversary of his birth is a timely reminder of his professional profile and his significant share in tuition and in the progress of our modern understanding of hygiene, focused on acquiring knowledge based on objective evidence of harm to the health of local populations exposed to adverse environmental factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]